BEIRUT—In the Islamic State group’s Syrian stronghold of Raqa, sirens ring out whenever a warplane approaches as jihadists flee their posts and vehicles to hide, activists say.
A US-led coalition and Russia have stepped up air strikes on the jihadists’ de facto Syrian capital since IS claimed to have downed a Russian passenger plane over Egypt’s Sinai in October and the deadly jihadist attacks in Paris two weeks later.
“The sirens are on the roofs of high buildings, in the squares and in the streets,” Taym Ramadan, a city resident and anti-IS activist, told AFP.
“When a warplane enters Raqa’s air space, the sirens ring out to warn [IS] members,” said the activist from the “Raqa is Being Slaughtered Silently” campaign group.
“As soon as they hear the sirens, they immediately leave their posts,” he said. “Some of them have been seen to leave their vehicles in the middle of the road” to hide.
A fellow activist who calls himself Abu Sham al-Raqa added: “Whenever the jets fly over they set off the sirens to warn the fighters and the residents, and the problem is that the bombing is going on night and day.”
Raqa has been under IS control since January 2014 after heavy fighting between the jihadists and opposition fighters, who had seized it from regime control in March 2013.
“Raqa is Being Slaughtered Silently” has secretly documented IS abuses in the city since April 2014 when it became off-limits for journalists after several were taken hostage and killed.
With more air strikes, IS has taken further measures to protect its members.
“The group has resorted to tunnels some previously used and others now being dug out inside the city,” Ramadan said.
According to Abu Sham, “The group has moved all its control posts that used to be on the city outskirts to heavily populated residential areas” after some of these were targeted.
On November 15, French fighter jets targeted weapon caches and a training camp on the southern and western outskirts of the city, according to the French army.
Researcher and writer Hisham al-Hashimi said that the group’s latest measures included “moving its stores to residential areas and abandoning its training camps”, as well as “depending on tunnels to hold its meetings”.
IS “holds its general meetings in hospitals and mosques” as it knows that the coalition and Russia do not target them to avoid killing civilians, he said.
The jihadist group’s leaders communicate using “verbal communication in code”, he said.
Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, said a large number of IS fighters had been moved from Syria to Iraq.