Abdalaziz Alhamza
The city of Al-Raqqa witnessed an unusually intense aerial campaign conducted by Coalition fighter jets today, the first of the kind since the start of the International Coalition mission against ISIS. At least 13 airstrikes were carried out on the Al-Furoussiya area and the ISIS stronghold at the 17th Division base, while several jets and reconnaissance aircrafts hovered over the city. It is noteworthy that the jets were hovering at low altitudes. Additionally, as the jets were pounding the area, helicopter gunships attempted to make an airborne- landing operation to free and rescue western hostages captured by ISIS in the eastern Raqqa countryside, however the mission failed when the helicopters were met by ISIS fighters who directly opened fire at them forcing them to take off.
In a separate attempt, two Coalition helicopter gunships tried to land near the Al-Saqiya,St in the Al-Sakan Al-Shababi area, where they were faced by ISIS fighters who opened fire at them forcing them to hover away and abort the attempt.
It is not the first time that an airborne rescue mission takes place in Raqqa, on 04/07/2014 ,U.S troops landed in the Al-Ekershi area in the easter Raqqa countryside, in an attempt to free American and British hostages. Although, the attempt has also failed, as ISIS had moved the hostages to a different venue, 24 hours prior to the operation. Two American troops were injured during the landing mission, which took place near ISIS’s Osama Bin Laden training camp. According to eye witnesses, the operation was conducted in collaboration with Jordanian troops, as they reported seeing soldiers wearing the Jordanian Army uniform while the troops tried to look for the hostages in the nearby villages.
1 Comment
Perhaps these folks wearing so called Jordanian Army uniforms were the soldiers being trained by the coalition in Jordan? Just wondering – everyone seems to have forgotten about them and they do need real life training – what better way than to run some covert ops on a small scale?