ISIS Leaders Flee Syria’s Raqqa Due to Heavy Bombing

And what, in fact, was being hit?

A fallen minaret on the ISIL-held northern Syrian city of Raqqa.

ISIS militants are bracing themselves for a possible attack on their de facto capital of Raqqa, Syria, as worldwide airstrikes intensify, the Associated Press reports.

He said the USA would have to be prepared for a permanent occupation in Syria or Iraq if he sent in ground forces.

French warplanes conducted 30 air strikes in retaliation on Sunday night, followed by seven more on Monday night. “Thank God, no civilians died”, he said.

The Syrian Observatory likewise said that tons of the families and IS members had started leaving Raqqa because of security issues.

A SOHR spokesman said that at least four ISIS militants – one of them a Briton – had been killed in the strikes, along with an undisclosed number of civilians. “People are trying as much as they can to get a permit to leave”.

“Russia has acknowledged that the plane was an attack carried out by DAESH (Islamic State)”. Outside of anecdotal accounts, damage assessment in Raqqa is inherently hard. Raqqa residents could not be reached because of an IS ban on private Internet access across the city. The Syrian government has for long accused the West of supporting the insurgency against Assad’s rule, deeming such actions as a “support of terror”. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said “many North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies have offered France support and help, and we are doing so in many different ways”.

Police on Tuesday found a second auto rented in Belgium by Salah, while his brother was found to have rented an apartment in the Parisian suburb of Bobigny a few days before the attack.

Syria’s al-Qaeda branch, al-Nusra Front, meanwhile claimed in a tweet that its fighters had downed two Russian reconnaissance planes in the northwestern province of Idlib.

At present, Russian Federation is supporting Assad’s forces in conjunction with Iran and Lebanese Hizbollah militia, while the United States and France are in a coalition with Sunni Arab states opposed to Assad.

Epa05029936 A handout frame grab from video footage published on the official web site of the Russian Defence Ministry 17 November 2015 shows Russian TTu-95MS turboprop-powered strategic bomber releasing a missile against Islamic State targets in Syria. But he cautioned that despite these successes, the USA military still faces serious obstacles in collecting information about Islamic State operations. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington research group that has advocated more robust American intervention in Syria, recently called for a loosening of the rules of engagement for USA warplanes – in other words, a relaxing of efforts to avoid killing civilians.

There are signs Islamic State has been planning for impending attacks. Activists reported 15 explosions overnight on Tuesday, though they said the city was also struck by an unidentified ballistic missile.

A civil rights activist in Raqqa emphasized concerns about ISIS using civilians as human shields under the airstrikes.