URGENT: ISIL’s Top Commanders Evacuating Syria’s Raqqa, ISIL Changing Capital

Intelligence sources confirmed citizens’ reports on Thursday that militants’ leaders are fleeing the so-called capital of the ISIL terrorist group after hundreds of ISIL members escaped the city on Wednesday to save their lives.

Various sources from citizens of Raqqa to local villagers and intelligence sources have reported in the last 24 hours that the terrorist group has started hasty evacuation of Raqqa after the Russian strikers and long-range bombers intensifying airstrikes on the strongholds and command centers of the ISIL militants in Raqqa in recent days.

The Russian military has also been pounding the ISIL stronghold in Raqqa with cruise missiles fired from the Mediterranean Sea since Tuesday.

Meantime, reports disclosed on Wednesday that the ISIL terrorists retreated from the Southern parts of Hasakah province, located North of Raqq, as Syrian army and popular forces, backed by Russian and Syrian airstrikes, continue to strike heavy blows at the militants.

According to the Arabic-language al-Mayadeen television, ISIL terrorists are moving their families and heavy weaponries from the city of al-Shadadi in the Southern countryside of Hasakah to Deir Ezzur.

Hasakah is a region in Northeastern Syria mostly populated by the Kurds. The Kurdish and Arab fighters have recently pushed the terrorists out of the Northern parts of the region.

Following similar heavy strikes in the Southern parts of the province by the Syrian forces, the ISIL terrorists were forced to retreat furthern to Raqqa, the so-called capital of the ISIL terrorist group. But after the start of heavy airstrikes by the Russian and French air forces in the last few days, the ISIL is again on the move to retreat further to deploy its central command in Deir Ezzur.

Also on Tuesday, the France’s Le Monde newspaper, citing a French official, said that the Russian military has launched airstrikes against the ISIL stronghold of Raqqa in Syria with cruise missiles from the Mediterranean Sea.

The information that Russia struck the ISIL positions in Raqqa was also reported by a senior French government source.

US officials also confirmed on Tuesday that Moscow conducted a significant number of strikes in Syria using both sea-launched cruise missiles and long-range bombers.

In the meantime, different sources said that the French fighter jets carried out many sorties over the ISIL positions in recent day and targeted them heavily with scores of bombs and missiles in reprisals for the Paris terror attacks by ISIL.

Also on Tuesday, French President Francois Hollande told the French parliament’s emergency meeting in Versailles that the French nuclear-powered Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier will leave the port of registration on November 19 to join the operation in Syria.