Syrian engineers and Red Crescent officials today visited a spillway of a key dam west of the Islamic State group's stronghold of Raqqa, opening the gates and relieving pressure, according to the aid organization and Syrian Kurdish media.
The visit followed concerns that the Tabqa Dam is threatened, endangering the surrounding area that has become a battleground as US-backed forces push toward Raqqa, the IS group's self-proclaimed capital.
The main gates of the dam, further to the south from the spillway, are out of service.
The condition of the dam, Syria's largest and a strategic infrastructure still in the hands of IS, has been disputed after conflicting claims that it came under attack from the US-led coalition, damaging the infrastructure, amid an unfolding offensive on the IS stronghold.
The US-led coalition denied targeting the dam, behind which lies Syria's largest water reservoir.
While IS still controls the main span of the dam and its gates, located about 40 kilometers upstream from the city of Raqqa, the US-backed Kurdish-led forces control the spillway and canal, about 4 kilometers further to the north.
The Syrian Red Crescent spokeswoman, Mona Kurdy, said a team of its volunteers managed to reach the spillway today in collaboration with the Syrian ministry of water resources.
She said an earlier attempt to reach the site failed because of violence, and a volunteer was killed.
"We lost a volunteer as he tried to carry out his duties. ... There were strikes," she told The Associated Press. She didn't elaborate and wouldn't provide further details on the team's mission, citing security concerns.
Opposition activists and former dam engineers said the dam manager who appeared in an IS video about the dangers facing the dam, a technician, and a Red Crescent volunteer were killed late on Monday.
The engineers, who had previously worked in the dam issued a statement, saying the manager and the Red Crescent volunteer were killed as they attempted to reach the structure to deal with leakage in the main chambers. They didn't specify how they were killed.
The activist Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the manager was believed killed in a suspected coalition airstrike against a convoy after he left the dam in the middle of the night.
The coalition said in an email it was looking into the claim.
The fighting in this part of Syria is shaping up to be the next major battle against IS. Earlier this month, US aircraft ferried hundreds of fighters from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, as well as American artillery and military advisers, behind IS lines.
The US-led forces seized control of the Tabqa airbase earlier this week. Today, fighting between the Syrian opposition forces and IS militants was reported on the dam itself.
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