US-backed fighters are closing in on the ISIS-held city of Raqqa, Syria, and the operation to retake the city is coming, a spokesman for the US-led coalition said Tuesday. Air Force Col. John Dorrian, spokesman for Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, said “ultimately we are isolating Raqqa and we are going to, at a time that our partners choose, move in and liberate that city,” according to Reuters. The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces have been pressing further into Syria toward Raqqa, which ISIS claims is the capital of its self-proclaimed caliphate. The city is now surrounded from three sides, according to AP.
The Air Force has finished resurrecting a B-1B Lancer, completing a yearslong process to transform a bomber that had been stored for parts in the Arizona desert into the new flagship of the 7th Bomb Wing at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas.