The battle over the Islamic State-held territory continues to escalate, with US-backed forces managing to assert their control over a neighborhood to the west of the extreme-Muslim group’s de-facto capital, Raqqa. While the Syrian Democratic Forces, which include Arab and Kurdish fighters and are supported with air-strikes by the US-led coalition, began their offensive some two-and-a-half weeks ago to seize the northern city from the Islamic State; the Syrian regime, backed by Shi’ite militias and Iran as well as Russian air support, continue to advance on the city from the south-West, in an attempt to thwart the US-backed forces from controlling the entire district – as the regime seeks to control a strip of land that would effectively connect Western-Syria with its eastern border, providing it with an on-land supply route from Iran trough Iraq, into Syria and Lebanon.