Kurdish-led SDF forms "civil council" to run Syria's Raqqa after defeating IS

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced Thursday the forming of a "civil council authority" to run Syria's northern city of Raqqa after the group defeats the Islamic State (IS) group.

In a short statement, the U.S.-backed SDF, which has been on an offensive against IS in Raqqa for months, said deliberations have been ongoing for six months between the group and local dignitaries and tribesmen of Raqqa to form the council.

It added that some towns captured by the SDF over the past few weeks around Raqqa have already been handed over to local authorities of the people there.

The United States has been heavily supporting the SDF and other Kurdish groups in their war on IS in northern Syria, most recently in Raqqa, the de facto capital of IS.

The SDF, with the help of the U.S. forces, which carried out several airdrops of forces near Raqqa, succeeded recently to lay a siege on the city of Tabqa in the countryside of Raqqa.

The declared goal of the attack on Raqqa is to liberate it from IS, and the United States seems to want a role in defeating IS in its main stronghold in Syria to portray a role of a superpower.

But observers in Syria highly question the intensions of the United States, particularly after striking a Syrian air base this month with 59 Tomahawk missiles, in retaliation to alleged chemical attack by the Syrian army on a rebel-held town in Idlib province.

The government then denied the claims, and the U.S. strike was deemed as a hasty one without waiting for proper investigation. Endit