AIN ISSA, Syria: As US-backed forces fight to oust the Daesh group from its last hideouts in Syria’s Raqqa, a city council-in-exile is already working to bring life back to its devastated home town.
From a buzzing headquarters in Ain Issa, 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Raqqa, Syrian engineers and lawyers are setting priorities for rebuilding their battle-scarred city.
“We know every inch of Raqqa. All we need is the announcement of liberation — which we expect to hear in the coming days,” said 27-year-old Mohammad Hassan, an engineer and member of the Raqqa Civil Council.
He laid out a map of the city, pointing out a pair of water pumping stations requiring restoration and major thoroughfares that will need to be cleared of rubble.
“We’ll start on the outside and work our way in,” Hassan said energetically.
Around 90 percent of Raqqa has been recaptured by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces since June, but much of the city has been reduced to ruins by heavy bombardment that has rendered whole streets unrecognizable.
Almost like a symbol of the RCC’s eagerness to get to work, bulldozers for removing debris are parked outside its humble two-story office building.
Founded six months ago by the Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurdish-Arab alliance fighting for Raqqa, the RCC boasts more than 100 volunteers from the city and its outskirts.
Men and women of various ages, ethnicities, religious sects, and professional backgrounds, they are divided into 14 committees working on everything from re-opening schools to restoring water and electricity supplies and repairing hospitals and homes.
The first priority, said the head of the council’s reconstruction committee, is removing a sea of explosive devices the jihadists have left in Raqqa’s streets, public institutions, and even private homes.
“This is a huge challenge — we can’t do anything else before getting rid of the mines,” Ibrahim Al-Hassan, a silver-haired engineer with thick-rimmed glasses, said as he sat in his sparse office.
“The second phase is restoring the water and electricity networks. After all that, we can turn to the schools. These are the essential priorities.”
Hassan said most building material would likely be imported from the neighboring Kurdish region of Iraq, although he did not rule out supplies coming in from Syrian government-held areas in Aleppo or Damascus.
The bulldozers parked outside, Hassan said, were the first of a total of 56 machines the council is set to receive in the coming weeks as part of a grant from the US State Department.
Both the American government and the US-led coalition backing the offensive to recapture Raqqa are involved in “short-term, quick impact projects” to bring Raqqa back to life, said a US official involved in civilian operations in Syria.
They would include supporting de-mining operations in and around critical buildings like schools and hospitals, and providing food and health support once Raqqa is recaptured.
“But we’re not here forever to fix everything. We have no money or desire to spend 20 years here demining the homes,” the official said.
A second US official involved in emergency aid operations for Syria said the US had helped the RCC “pre-position” more than 900 tons of food — including rice, beans, and wheat — for immediate delivery once the Raqqa offensive is over.
The operation has also earmarked water tanks, sewage trucks, and hygiene kits for tens of thousands of civilians expected to flood back into the city.
The EU has also pledged some $3.5 million to fund de-mining projects, said RCC member Abdullah Arian, a lawyer from Raqqa who visited Rome last month with other council members to solicit international funds.
“Raqqa was destroyed so that terror would not hit Washington, Paris, or London,” Arian said.
Raqqa gained a reputation as a key Daesh launchpad for overseas attacks.
“Those who took part in its destruction should be partners in its development,” Arian said.
But RCC members say they cannot yet set a price tag for rebuilding Raqqa because the ongoing offensive means they have yet to enter the city itself.
Arian and his six children, who were smuggled out of the Daesh-held city around 15 months ago, are waiting to see what is left of their home.
“Raqqa won’t be the same city that I left five years ago. There’s been a lot of pain,” says engineer Laila Mustafa, the RCC’s co-chair.
She also urged the international community to shoulder the responsibility for rebuilding her home town, but ruled out a role for the government of President Bashar Assad.
“On a personal level or working with companies (in government-held areas), we don’t have any problems,” she said. “But we won’t deal with the regime, neither politically nor economically.”
Far from front line, volunteers prepare to rebuild Raqqa
Far from front line, volunteers prepare to rebuild Raqqa
First responders enter devastated Aleppo neighborhood after days of deadly fighting
- The US-backed SDF, which have played a key role in combating the Daesh group in large swaths of eastern Syria, are the largest force yet to be absorbed into Syria’s national army
ALEPPO, Syria: First responders on Sunday entered a contested neighborhood in Syria’ s northern city of Aleppo after days of deadly clashes between government forces and Kurdish-led forces. Syrian state media said the military was deployed in large numbers.
The clashes broke out Tuesday in the predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, Achrafieh and Bani Zaid after the government and the Syrian Democratic Forces, the main Kurdish-led force in the country, failed to make progress on how to merge the SDF into the national army. Security forces captured Achrafieh and Bani Zaid.
The fighting between the two sides was the most intense since the fall of then-President Bashar Assad to insurgents in December 2024. At least 23 people were killed in five days of clashes and more than 140,000 were displaced amid shelling and drone strikes.
The US-backed SDF, which have played a key role in combating the Daesh group in large swaths of eastern Syria, are the largest force yet to be absorbed into Syria’s national army. Some of the factions that make up the army, however, were previously Turkish-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces.
The Kurdish fighters have now evacuated from the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood to northeastern Syria, which is under the control of the SDF. However, they said in a statement they will continue to fight now that the wounded and civilians have been evacuated, in what they called a “partial ceasefire.”
The neighborhood appeared calm Sunday. The United Nations said it was trying to dispatch more convoys to the neighborhoods with food, fuel, blankets and other urgent supplies.
Government security forces brought journalists to tour the devastated area, showing them the damaged Khalid Al-Fajer Hospital and a military position belonging to the SDF’s security forces that government forces had targeted.
The SDF statement accused the government of targeting the hospital “dozens of times” before patients were evacuated. Damascus accused the Kurdish-led group of using the hospital and other civilian facilities as military positions.
On one street, Syrian Red Crescent first responders spoke to a resident surrounded by charred cars and badly damaged residential buildings.
Some residents told The Associated Press that SDF forces did not allow their cars through checkpoints to leave.
“We lived a night of horror. I still cannot believe that I am right here standing on my own two feet,” said Ahmad Shaikho. “So far the situation has been calm. There hasn’t been any gunfire.”
Syrian Civil Defense first responders have been disarming improvised mines that they say were left by the Kurdish forces as booby traps.
Residents who fled are not being allowed back into the neighborhood until all the mines are cleared. Some were reminded of the displacement during Syria’s long civil war.
“I want to go back to my home, I beg you,” said Hoda Alnasiri.
