SDF Troops Capture Town in Northern Syria from ISIS

Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) pushed the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) out of the northern Syrian town of al-Ukayrshi on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.

The latest victory is part of the U.S.-backed SDF’s military campaign to drive ISIS out from both sides of the Euphrates River Valley and capture Raqqa, the group’s former de facto capital, with help from U.S. air and ground support.

Al-Ukayrshi, nine miles (14 km) southeast of Raqqa, was previously the site of a jihadist training camp named after former al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali told the AP.

In addition, the SDF evacuated more than 100 civilians from the Old City of Raqqa after clashes with ISIS militants broke out on Tuesday.

SDF officer Habun Osman told ARA News that militants were “using these civilians as human shields to impede our progress in Raqqa.”

Rebel Groups Hit Government Warplane Near Southern Cease-Fire Area

Two rebel groups in southern Syria claimed responsibility for downing a Syrian government warplane on Tuesday, according to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

Rebels allegedly shot down the plane over a village between the provinces of rural Damascus and Sweida, near the area covered by the recently announced cease-fire deal brokered by the U.S., Russia and Jordan.

The Lions of the East Army and the Ahmad al-Abdo Forces issued a joint statement on Tuesday. “The plane was shot down and crashed in regime-controlled territory. We have no information on the pilot,” Fares al-Munjed, communications head for the Ahmad al-Abdo Forces, said, according to Agence France-Presse.

However, the SOHR reported on Wednesday that the pilot had managed to land at Sin airbase, a government military base east of Damascus.

Syrian Monitoring Group Says ISIS Leader Killed in Syria

The SOHR reported on Tuesday that it had “confirmed information” that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been killed in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor near the Syrian border with Iraq.

“(We have) confirmed information from leaders, including one of the first rank who is Syrian, in the Islamic State in the eastern countryside of Deir Ezzor,” Rami Abdulrahman, director of SOHR, told Reuters.

Iraqi and U.S. officials have been unable to confirm the claim, though the U.S. Central Command said in a statement: “[We] hope [the report] is true. We strongly advise ISIS to implement a strong line of succession. It will be needed.”

Russia said last month that it might have killed al-Baghdadi in an airstrike targeting ISIS commanders who were holding a meeting outside of Raqqa, though Russian military leaders later said there was no evidence to support the claim.

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