It was the stronghold from where ISIL launched its lightning strike to capture Mosul and from where the group threatened to one day conquer Rome.
More than three and a half years after ISIL took control of the Syrian provincial capital, Raqqa was liberated from the group’s fighters in a dawn offensive on Tuesday, ending its claims to have recreated the caliphate.
Hours after the fall of the notorious Naim square, where ISIL instituted a reign of terror though beheadings and crucifixions, the American-backed Syrian Defence Forces (SDF) took the hospital and sports stadium from the last of its holdouts.
The considerable challenge of mopping up sympathisers and making the destroyed city safe from booby-trappings began before nightfall. “The military operations in Raqqa have ended,” said Talal Silo, an SDF spokesman. “But now there is a search going on to get rid of sleeper cells, in addition to cleaning the city from mines. The situation in Raqqa is under control.”
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Read more:
Naim Square, one of Raqqa’s main roundabouts, became symbol of ISIL brutality
Raqqa evacuation included some foreign fighters, local official says
The world must not turn its back on the Syrian refugee crisis
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Raqqa had been encircled since June by the SDF and the advance backed by the US-led Coalition had been painstakingly resisted by ISIL. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors Syria’s six-year-old civil war, said that 80 per cent of the city had been destroyed in the fighting, and that more than 1,000 civilians had been killed since June, along with at least 2,000 combatants. It reported that more than 150 civilians were killed by ISIL planted landmines in that time while trying to flee the city.
The final stage of the siege only took effect in recent days as convoys were arranged to evacuate local ISIL fighters to other parts of Syrian, leaving foreign fighters to be vanquished in a last stand.
Colonel Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the coalition, said most of the 2,500 fighters left in the city were killed with about 400 surrendering or captured by the SDF.
The SDF is a force of 50,000 made up of battle-hardened Kurdish guerrillas and Arab tribal recruits drawn from across the agricultural regions of eastern Syria. Its yellow flag was finally hoisted to replace the black ISIL banners on Tuesday morning at the hospital and fluttered above walls that were riddled with bullet holes and blackened by fire. Celebrations of the hard won victory were broadcast from Naim square, closing a chapter when the traffic roundabout was known as the circle of hell.
Raqqa was the first place that gave the world a complete glimpse into the society that ISIL would create under its extremist vision. The images from the city include the pictures of hostages, including James Foley and aid worker Alan Henning, being beheaded by Mohammed Emwazi, the notorious Jihadi John. Emwazi met his own fate in 2015 after a drone strike on another Raqqa highway, Clocktower Square.
As late as November 2011, President Bashar Al Assad visited Raqqa to shore up loyalty to the regime from the tribal elders and agricultural merchants that dominated the city on the banks of the Euphrates.
Rebels that swept into the city as regime troops abandoned their positions just over a year later, included the forerunner of ISIL, which established itself in the east of the city.
It quickly drove out rival factions including the Al Qaeda linked Jabhat Al Nusra and stories of the unique nature of ISIL’s control were soon emerging from the city.
One audio diarist sent messages from the city that detailed the sudden introduction of everyday brutality. The shopkeeper’s assistant told how he witnessed a public execution.
“Fighting with the regime. The sentence is beheading. Working with the foreign media. The sentence is beheading,” he said recounting the verdicts being handed down to prisoners. “A man with a sword carried out the beheading.”
Moments later he had his own an encounter with ISIL’s religious police. Fearing the worst, the diarist was instead given a corporal punishment. “Cursing out: loud forty lashes,” he recalled. “I could see in his eyes he took pleasure from this.”
The accounts of the city’s residents were filtered through the group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS). Many of these activists were subsequently killed. Others fled into exile and have sought refugee status. “This was something new that we had never seen, this kind of violence,” Hamza Abdel Aziz al-Hamza, who was a spokesman for the group. “They started cutting heads off, crucifixions. They spread panic everywhere.
“There were edicts against drinking and smoking. Enforced by an all-female morality police called the Khansaa Brigade, women were made to wear the veil and, eventually, black shoes only. They are beaten if their niqab is somehow too revealing, a veil too flimsy, or if they are caught walking on the street alone.”
Like Emwazi, who grew up on the fringes of West London’s posh Notting Hill, hundreds of foreign recruits forsook Western lifestyles to heed the call of Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, the Iraqi who wanted to emulate the Abbasid dynasty.
Social media messages from within Raqqa portrayed an almost colonial foreigners vs local divide. A cadre of fighters’ brides emerged, some brutal enforcers in the Khansaa brigade. “When you are on the street you see them everywhere,” recalled another member of RBSS. “They love fast-food places and internet cafes. They love Nutella and they’ve got cans of Red Bull. Chocolates! Cheesecake! People are poor and see these expensive things! But ISIL wants to keep these Western recruits happy.”
With its footprint reduced to pockets of territory near Deir Ezzor, ISIL has few claims to statehood but the group has switched its tactics to inspiring attacks on the West and waging terror across Iraq and Syria.
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
House-hunting
Top 10 locations for inquiries from US house hunters, according to Rightmove
- Edinburgh, Scotland
- Westminster, London
- Camden, London
- Glasgow, Scotland
- Islington, London
- Kensington and Chelsea, London
- Highlands, Scotland
- Argyll and Bute, Scotland
- Fife, Scotland
- Tower Hamlets, London
Company%20profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESplintr%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EMay%202019%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EMohammad%20AlMheiri%20and%20Badr%20AlBadr%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EDubai%20and%20Riyadh%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3Epayments%20%2F%20FinTech%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ESize%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E10%20employees%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EInitial%20investment%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3Eundisclosed%20seven-figure%20sum%20%2F%20pre-seed%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStage%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3Eseed%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3Eangel%20investors%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Veere di Wedding
Dir: Shashanka Ghosh
Starring: Kareena Kapoo-Khan, Sonam Kapoor, Swara Bhaskar and Shikha Talsania
Verdict: 4 Stars
The Outsider
Stephen King, Penguin
THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
AUSTRALIA SQUAD
Aaron Finch, Matt Renshaw, Brendan Doggett, Michael Neser, Usman Khawaja, Shaun Marsh, Mitchell Marsh, Tim Paine (captain), Travis Head, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Jon Holland, Ashton Agar, Mitchell Starc, Peter Siddle
Turkish Ladies
Various artists, Sony Music Turkey
More from Janine di Giovanni
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana
Rating: 4.5/5
What is a Ponzi scheme?
A fraudulent investment operation where the scammer provides fake reports and generates returns for old investors through money paid by new investors, rather than through ligitimate business activities.
The specs
Engine: Dual 180kW and 300kW front and rear motors
Power: 480kW
Torque: 850Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh359,900 ($98,000)
On sale: Now
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Did you know?
Brunch has been around, is some form or another, for more than a century. The word was first mentioned in print in an 1895 edition of Hunter’s Weekly, after making the rounds among university students in Britain. The article, entitled Brunch: A Plea, argued the case for a later, more sociable weekend meal. “By eliminating the need to get up early on Sunday, brunch would make life brighter for Saturday night carousers. It would promote human happiness in other ways as well,” the piece read. “It is talk-compelling. It puts you in a good temper, it makes you satisfied with yourself and your fellow beings, it sweeps away the worries and cobwebs of the week.” More than 100 years later, author Guy Beringer’s words still ring true, especially in the UAE, where brunches are often used to mark special, sociable occasions.
Recycle Reuse Repurpose
New central waste facility on site at expo Dubai South area to handle estimated 173 tonne of waste generated daily by millions of visitors
Recyclables such as plastic, paper, glass will be collected from bins on the expo site and taken to the new expo Central Waste Facility on site
Organic waste will be processed at the new onsite Central Waste Facility, treated and converted into compost to be re-used to green the expo area
Of 173 tonnes of waste daily, an estimated 39 per cent will be recyclables, 48 per cent organic waste and 13 per cent general waste.
About 147 tonnes will be recycled and converted to new products at another existing facility in Ras Al Khor
Recycling at Ras Al Khor unit:
Plastic items to be converted to plastic bags and recycled
Paper pulp moulded products such as cup carriers, egg trays, seed pots, and food packaging trays
Glass waste into bowls, lights, candle holders, serving trays and coasters
Aim is for 85 per cent of waste from the site to be diverted from landfill
Three ways to boost your credit score
Marwan Lutfi says the core fundamentals that drive better payment behaviour and can improve your credit score are:
1. Make sure you make your payments on time;
2. Limit the number of products you borrow on: the more loans and credit cards you have, the more it will affect your credit score;
3. Don't max out all your debts: how much you maximise those credit facilities will have an impact. If you have five credit cards and utilise 90 per cent of that credit, it will negatively affect your score.
What is Diwali?
The Hindu festival is at once a celebration of the autumn harvest and the triumph of good over evil, as outlined in the Ramayana.
According to the Sanskrit epic, penned by the sage Valmiki, Diwali marks the time that the exiled king Rama – a mortal with superhuman powers – returned home to the city of Ayodhya with his wife Sita and brother Lakshman, after vanquishing the 10-headed demon Ravana and conquering his kingdom of Lanka. The people of Ayodhya are believed to have lit thousands of earthen lamps to illuminate the city and to guide the royal family home.
In its current iteration, Diwali is celebrated with a puja to welcome the goodness of prosperity Lakshmi (an incarnation of Sita) into the home, which is decorated with diyas (oil lamps) or fairy lights and rangoli designs with coloured powder. Fireworks light up the sky in some parts of the word, and sweetmeats are made (or bought) by most households. It is customary to get new clothes stitched, and visit friends and family to exchange gifts and greetings.
The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
