Then on Thursday, the news station Kuridstan24 posted a video of the same attack, showing what appears to be the same white car bomb, or VBIED, speeding toward their cameraman before exploding.

It is unclear how many fighters were wounded or killed in the attack, but suicide bombings of the type seen in the video are a staple of the Islamic State’s tactics and one of the leading cause of casualties in Iraq and Syria. In this case, the attack was carried out by an armored pickup truck loaded with explosives. Not only did it have a driver but also a fighter armed with a machine gun on the roof. As Hugo Kaaman, a researcher of Islamic State vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, points out, the gunner on the roof was likely there to suppress any defenses the truck might encounter.

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Col. Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq and Syria, said that, after two months of heavy fighting in the city and with U.S.-backed fighters attacking from three directions, the Syrian Democratic Forces hold 45 percent of the city, a figure that has remain unchanged for more than a week.

While the Pentagon insists that its proxy force is making daily progress, the Islamic State has turned Raqqa into a battle of attrition to try to ensure that the U.S.-backed force disproportionately pays for each foot of ground into the city. Unlike Iraqi forces who cleared Mosul with tens of thousands of troops and reserves to help buoy their forces, the Syrian Democratic Forces has significantly smaller numbers and fewer pieces of heavy equipment, such as armored vehicles and tanks.