Push to oust IS from 'capital' Raqqa to start soon -- officials

The offensive to drive the Islamic State group from its Raqqa stronghold in Syria will begin in the next few weeks, top US and British defense officials say.

US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and his British counterpart Michael Fallon make the predictions nearly 10 days into a US-backed Iraqi offensive on Mosul, the last major Iraqi city under IS control.

Iraq's elite counterterrorism forces advance toward Islamic State positions in the village of Tob Zawa, about 9 kilometers (5½ miles) from Mosul, Iraq, Tuesday, October 25, 2016. (AP/Khalid Mohammed) — Iraq’s elite counterterrorism forces advance toward Islamic State positions in the village of Tob Zawa, about 9 kilometers (5½ miles) from Mosul, Iraq, Tuesday, October 25, 2016. (AP/Khalid Mohammed)

“It starts in the next few weeks,” Carter says in an interview with NBC news before arriving in Brussels for a NATO meeting.

“That has long been our plan and we will be capable of resourcing both,” Carter says.

Arriving for the two-day NATO defense ministers meeting in the Belgian capital, Fallon says “we hope a similar operation will begin towards Raqqa in the next few weeks.”

— AFP