Raqqa battle starting within days: French defense min.

By Hajer Mtiri

PARIS

An offensive to recapture the Syrian city of Raqqa from Daesh will start in the coming days, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Friday.

"France has always said that Raqqa was a major objective," the minister told French TV outlet CNews.

Raqqa and Mosul, where Iraqi forces are conducting an offensive since mid-October, are the two shrines of Daesh.

“Today we can say that Raqqa is encircled and the battle will begin in the coming days. It will be a very hard battle but it will be an essential battle," Le Drian said.

Hundreds of Syrian civilians were reportedly killed on Thursday in two U.S.-led coalition airstrikes in Syria's northern Raqqa province.

Anti-Daesh coalition spokesman U.S. Army Col. Joe Scrocca said he was unable to confirm the strike on the school was a coalition action but confirmed the coalition carried out strikes in the area.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Pentagon department said that the U.S.-led coalition against Daesh had for the first time airdropped local ground forces behind enemy lines near the Daesh-held town of Tabqa in northern Syria, opening up a new front in the campaign to recapture Raqqa.

As for Mosul, Le Drian said the city would be completely liberated "in the coming weeks".

"Daesh will lose," he said. "The combined action and the Iraqi forces and the coalition of which France is a part will gradually lead to the resumption of Mosul," he added.