US-backed fighters have launched a renewed attack on ISIL extremists inside their Syrian bastion Raqqa, seeking to retake a key eastern neighborhood, a monitor said on Saturday.

“The Syrian Democratic Forces started a counter-offensive on Friday night to retake Al-Senaa,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The SDF first ousted ISIL from Al-Senaa on June 12, less than a week after they first entered Raqqa.

But ISIL pushed back, unleashing a slew of car bombs and attacks from weaponized drones and taking back control of the neighborhood on Friday.

“It was Daesh’s (ISIL) most intense attack yet,” a military source from the US-backed fighters told AFP.

The source said ISIL had surrounded about 50 members of the Elite Forces — US-backed Arab fighters allied with the SDF — before heavy coalition air strikes broke the siege.

“At this point, the SDF has retaken about 30 percent of Al-Senaa. There are clashes and coalition air strikes in that neighborhood and across the city,” Abdel Rahman told AFP.

The US-led coalition has provided key support to the SDF’s offensive, with air strikes, on-the-ground advisers, weapons, and equipment.

The Observatory said on Saturday that 193 civilians, including 33 children, had been killed in Raqqa since the US-backed SDF entered the city.

Source: AFP