Al Jazeera

US-backed rebels tell Al Jazeera they will launch their campaign on Sunday to capture northern Syrian city from ISIL. The final phase in a battle against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) armed group in the Syrian city of Raqqa will begin on Sunday night, a rebel spokesman has told Al Jazeera. “We do not know how long it will take, but we don’t think that it will be a long battle”, Talal Silo, a spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, told Al Jazeera on Sunday.