The ISIS group ordered residents to evacuate the Syrian city of Raqqa on Sunday following reports that a dam contested by US-backed forces upstream on the Euphrates River could collapse, activists reported.
The terrorists said coalition airstrikes had weakened the Tabqa Dam and that the water level behind the dam was rising. The extremists captured the city from Syrian rebels in 2014 and it now serves as the capital of the group’s self-styled Islamic caliphate.
Civilians began fleeing midday, according to the activist-run Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently.