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           Raqqa Civilians Flee Airstrikes as Kurds, Jihadists Clash

   by Jamie Dettmer

   U.S.-led coalition warplanes carried out intense airstrikes Tuesday on
   Raqqa, the de facto Syrian capital of the Islamic State group, a
   monitoring group said, continuing days of air-raids that appear to be
   aimed at demoralizing jihadist fighters before an offensive by
   Kurdish-led forces on villages to the north of the city.

   The airstrikes appear targeted mostly on IS defensive positions on the
   outskirts of the city. This may be to try to avoid civilian casualties,
   although civilian deaths have been reported.
   Raqqa political activists have been warning that IS is using civilians
   as human shields, spreading fighters and their weaponry around civilian
   areas and housing militants in residential blocks.

   ''
   Leaders of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a
   Kurdish-dominated coalition that also includes a mixed bag of small
   Sunni Arab armed groups and some Syriac and Turkmen community defense
   forces, announced Tuesday it had started an offensive to liberate Raqqa
   from the Islamic State.
   
   Americans in combat mode?

   SDF spokesmen said U.S. commandos are embedding with their fighters in
   the offensive and posted videos purportedly showing this. U.S.
   officials deny American soldiers are taking on combat roles in the
   fighting and insist U.S. Special Forces won't be exchanging fire with
   IS.

   ''
   Colonel Steve Warren, the spokesman for the U.S.-led international
   coalition against IS, says U.S. Special Forces personnel are only
   providing assistance and advice to the SDF in the battle, but they are
   not on the front line. "We are in their off centers and headquarters
   providing advice," he said.

   U.S. officials, and some Kurdish officials, are also cautioning the
   objective of the military operation is to seize villages and territory
   north and west of Raqqa rather than to seek to retake the beleaguered
   city. The objective, they say, is to squeeze the city and further
   isolate it.

   Civilians urged to leave

   Some Western officials concede the SDF doesn't have the capability yet
   to mount a full-scale assault on the city. That has prompted political
   activists to question why the international coalition has been
   air-dropping leaflets in the past few days on Raqqa urging civilians to
   flee the city, implying that an assault is in the offing.

   ''
   "The time you have been waiting for has come, the time to leave Raqqa,"
   the flyers read. The leaflets depict three men and a woman with a child
   escaping urban ruins and heading to a peaceful landscape with the sun
   shining through clouds. Activists say the coalition is sowing panic
   among civilians and risks alienating them. There are reports some
   civilians have volunteered to help defend the city.

   "If the international coalition wants to ask the people of Raqqa and
   its suburbs to leave their cities and towns, they should first provide
   havens and safe roads to secure civilians," said Hamoud Almousa, an
   activist with the anti-IS network Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently.

   He says it appears locals fear the YPG as much as IS.

   '' Civilians flee to countryside

   The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring
   group that relies on a network of activists inside Syria, reported
   Wednesday sharp clashes between SDF and IS forces around villages close
   to Ain Issa, 56 kilometers north of Raqqa. The monitoring group also
   said dozens of civilians left Raqqa city Wednesday and headed into the
   western countryside.

   Meanwhile, Turkish military officials have warned their U.S.
   counterparts that Turkey will not accept American-backed Kurdish-led
   forces crossing the Euphrates River to mount assaults on two other
   IS-held towns, Manbij and Jarabulus.

   Reports recently suggested the Turks may have been reducing their
   objections to Kurdish-led forces moving west of the Euphrates, but in a
   meeting with General Joseph Votel, head of U.S. Central Command, deputy