Daesh hands over Syria’s Raqqa to PYD/PKK

The Daesh terrorist organization handed over its de facto capital Raqqa in Syria’s north to the Syrian extension of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and affiliated Democratic Union Party (PYD).

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Tuesday that the U.S.-backed terrorist groups completely took Raqqa from Daesh.

Daesh captured Raqqa in early 2014 and declared it the capital of its self-proclaimed caliphate.

In June, the PKK/PYD launched an operation to recapture Raqqa from Daesh with the support of U.S. forces.

Daesh has lost swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq this year, including its most prized possession, Mosul, and in Syria it has been forced back into a strip of the Euphrates valley and surrounding desert.

The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the United States. The PKK has been conducting armed violence in the southeastern part of Turkey since 1984. More than 40,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the three-decade long conflict.