The Fall of DA'ESH

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)  claimed today to have captured Raqqa, Raqqa, the capital of the self-styled "Islamic State" caliphate known to most people in the Middle East as DA'ESH.

A US military spokesman confirmed that about 90% of the city had been cleared. This morning the SDF cleared the last two major IS positions in Raqqa - the municipal stadium and the National Hospital.

Islamic State (IS) made Raqqa the headquarters of its self-styled "caliphate" in early 2014, implementing an extreme interpretation of Islamic law and imposing savage punishments on anyone who opposed it or who they considered un-Islamic including beheading, crucifixion, torture, or throwing gay people off the roofs of five-storey buildings.

The city also became the base for thousands of jihadists from around the world who heeded a call to migrate there by DA'ESH leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The SDF was formed by the Kurdish Popular Protection Units (YPG) militia two years ago along with a number of smaller, Arab factions. It says it is not aligned with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or the rebels seeking to overthrow him.


Map showing control of Iraq and Syria (16 October 2017)

With the help of US-led coalition air strikes, weapons and special forces, SDF fighters have driven IS out of more than 8,000 sq km (3,100 sq miles) of territory. Last November, they began a major operation to capture Raqqa. They slowly encircled the city before breaking through IS defences on the outskirts in June.

For DA'ESH to be able to claim to be a Caliphate one of the requirements was to control territory. While they dominated a significant part of both Syria and Iraq including the cities of Raqqa and Mosul that claim was plausible. With the defeat of DA'ESH forces in both these cities, coalition forces are close to reaching the point where even the most reality-proof jihadist will be unable to sustain the idea that this blood-soaked death cult can make that claim.

The price, however has been terrible There has been a "staggering loss of civilian life" in Raqqa, according to UN war crimes investigators. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, reported on Tuesday that at least 3,250 people had been killed in the past five months, among them 1,130 civilians. Hundreds more were missing and might be buried under destroyed buildings, they said.

I hope the rest of the world can help the people of Iraq and Syria to rebuild and that those who have joined together to defeat the evil of DA'ESH can resist the temptation to turn their guns on one another. The omens in Iraq are not good.

We most also recognise that while the defeat of DA'ESH is a huge blow to Islamist terrorism, it will not eliminate the threat of murderous Jihadist nutcases like the ones who have killed and maimed innocent people all over the world, from  Manchester to Mogadishu.
I have seen the following quote variously attributed to Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Wendell Phillips and Desmond Tutu. Perhaps all of them said something of the sort. But I understand that it originated with John Philpot Curran:


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