Residents of a city in ruins yearn to return
RAQQA, crowd was frustration.
“We want to go inside!” one man yelled. “They told us when Raqqa is liberated we can go home.”
Some of the U.S.-backed fighters who drove Islamic State militants from the Syrian city in October tried to reason with him. It’s not safe, they said. Scores of people have been injured or killed by mines since the fighting ended.
“Haram!” the crowd shouted. “This is wrong!”
There have been many such testy exchanges at checkpoints as the fighters known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias, wrestle with the difficult business of governing a swath of territory reclaimed from Islamic State in northeastern Syria.
The challenges are especially acute in the city that Islamic State claimed as its capital and ruled with a bloodthirsty grip. Nearly two months after its capture, Raqqa remains a rubble-strewn ghost town.
The entire population — Syria — seething The with nearly 300,000 people — fled over more than four years of fighting, moving into displacement camps and crowding in with relatives in cities scattered across Syria and beyond. About 8,000 former residents have been allowed to return to a few outlying neighborhoods. But humanitarian workers say it could be years before most can go home.
The city is riddled with deadly booby traps and unexploded ordnance. Bombs have been found under rugs, inside ovens and refrigerators and, in at least one instance, stuffed into a teddy bear.
As many as 80 percent of its homes and businesses were gutted by ground fighting and airstrikes. And vital infrastructure — electricity plants, water pumps, sewer lines, hospitals, schools — was destroyed.
The United States has dispatched experts and equipment to help remove explosives, clear rubble and repair the structures that aid workers and local authorities need to operate in the city. But U.S. officials have stated repeatedly that they are no longer in the business of “nation-building.”
Even after the departure of Islamic State, Raqqa remains a contested city, claimed by both the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad and the Kurdish-led fighters who liberated it.
In the absence of a broader political settlement, the victorious Syrian forces have set up a civilian council made up of local tribal leaders and technocrats to administer the province to which Raqqa belongs. But the council does not have the resources to rebuild an entire city.
As weeks stretch into months, frustration is building among Raqqa’s displaced multitudes — frustration that some here worry could turn the mostly Arab population against the Kurdish-led liberators and create fertile ground for an Islamic State comeback.
Looming on the horizon is the prospect of more fighting. Assad has vowed to take back all parts of the country that have fallen from government control since the start of a grinding civil war, well into its seventh year, that has killed thousands.
Now that government forces, backed by Russian air power and Iran-sponsored militias, have driven the militants from the last settlements they held in Syria, the president’s aides have signaled he may soon order an advance on Raqqa.