Raqqa’s Governance and Reconstruction Challenges (2017–2023)
p. 143-174
Texte intégral
1Few cities have suffered as dramatic a fate as Raqqa has in the past decade. An impoverished city, former administrative centre of the Euphrates Project of dams and state farms, it became a “revolution capital” in March 2013, before choosing to join the so-called Islamic State (IS) and a bombing campaign during the summer of 2017. In ten years, its population has deeply changed, its civil society is dispersed in exile, while its remaining notables and tribal chiefs are searching for the best political setting able to preserve their economic and social base.
2In March 2013, the local city militias managed to liberate themselves from the Syrian regime, with the help of the Free Syrian Army and jihadists affiliated to the Harakat Aḥrār al-Shām. They set up their own revolutionary municipal council within a few weeks, with an active civil society, assisting the population and thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Aleppo, Ḥoms and Ḥamā. However, within a few months the Islamic State took over the city in a series of attacks. Most of Raqqa’s ancient families were opposed to both the regime and the Islamic State. In October 2013, some of Raqqa’s minor sheikhs, who had settled in the city in the 1960s, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. They soon came to regret their choice, faced with the brutality of IS rule and the arrival of thousands of foreign jihadists looking to take their wealth, their houses and their daughters. The majority of Raqqa’s population managed to escape, while a few fighters and impoverished civilians remained in their houses until the summer of 2017.
3After the June–October 2017 battle won by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF, Qiwwat Sūriyya al-Dimuqrāṭiyya) on the ground, backed by US soldiers and the international coalition forces, Raqqa had lost 80% of its buildings and infrastructure (REACH 2019). According to Amnesty International, 1,600 civilians died.1 Raqqa then became a “cautionary tale about civilian harm in twenty-first-century conflict”, as its civilian population was kept locked in the city, unable to flee the heavy shelling by the international coalition forces (McNerney et al. 2022: v). It joined the destroyed cities of Beirut (1978 and 1982), Ḥamā (1982), Tripoli (1984), Najaf and Karbalāʾ (1991), Fallūja (2004), Mawṣul (2017) and now Gaza, which is being heavily bombed (2023-).
4Raqqa’s population has changed significantly. Two thirds of its former 370,000 inhabitants2 have fled to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and the rest of the world. Only a third have come back, according to local estimates. Half of its population is now composed of internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the Jazīra. This new population is poor and more inclined to collaborate with the SDF. Faced with the massive reconstruction needs, most Arab leaders decided to “win the peace” by supporting the new SDF Raqqa Civil Council (RCC). The RCC has 120 members, mostly low-profile members of the local Arab tribes, directed by Kurdish “cadros”3 mainly from Ḥasaka and Raqqa. However, while the local population tries to rebuild acceptable living conditions, most of its members refuse to join the SDF military forces that are fighting the Islamic State, which is still active in the countryside, and even in the city of Raqqa at night. Hundreds of young men have tried to flee Raqqa or are in hiding, as the city is full of checkpoints and police patrols.
5The aim of this chapter is to present the challenges faced by the Raqqawi population to rebuild their homes and livelihoods, while protecting the youth from conscription on the one hand, and from the temptation to join jihadist groups on the other. It details how the Kurds have set up a municipal administration, distributed positions, kept control over the assets (land, buildings), awarded infrastructure contracts to their supporters, and tried to give democratic guarantees to their international donors. It also describes how the population is adapting to the new social order, trying to rebuild livelihoods in a bad economic context, and with the threat of the regime returning. It contributes to the understanding of the modes of municipal governance in the context of reconstruction, but also of uncertain transition, as the Syrian regime is at the gates of the city.
Fig. 1 – The built-up area of Raqqa in 2019 and main neighbourhoods receiving migrants and returnees.

6I have drawn on opposition media reports and letters published by Raqqawi journalist opponents, in Raqqa Post, Raqqa is being Slaughtered Silently, al-Harmal, Enab Baladi. I have also used SDF media.4 I have had Skype conversations and exchanged voice messages with several Raqqawis based in Raqqa and Urfa, whom I had met during the fieldwork phase of my Ph.D. (1997–2004). It was not possible for me to travel to Raqqa for security reasons: it was unsafe for me and would have endangered my former contacts. This paper starts by presenting Raqqa’s several civil councils (2013 then 2017), then describes the reconstruction and stabilisation efforts, before presenting the challenges of governance faced by an impoverished population that wants to rebuild peace.
The establishment of Raqqa Civil Council under Syrian Democratic Forces
Raqqa is a town characterized by brutality and conservatism, which leads an austere and narrow life within its tribal traditions. The people of Raqqa are bedouins hard in their interpersonal relations, and subject to the orders given by those who have power in their hands. (ʿAbd al-Salam al-ʿUjayli, 1973).
7Describing its townsfolk three years after Hafez al-Assad’s military coup, the Raqqawi novelist ʿAbd al-Salam al-ʿUjayli bitterly pointed to their opportunism and their submission to authoritative powers. It is an inspiring quote, which is still valid in 2023, in particular for its elite. However, at the beginning of the revolution in 2011, the youth of Raqqa took part in demonstrations in favour of the revolution, in particular the demonstration of 25th March 2011, and that of 16th August 2011 (Yazigi 2018). In search of revenge against the Baʿathist State, which was accused of having impeded their development and of having robbed them, the youth of the Euphrates tribes backed the liberation movements that had infiltrated the region in 2011, while some of their parents remained loyal to the Assad regime. Raqqa is proud of having managed to create its own autonomous administration twice in its recent history: in March 2013 and also previously in August 1920, when French colonial power was being established.
A city administered by rural migrants since the 1960s
8Raqqa’s core families managed to administer their city until the 1963 Baʿath revolution. They were elected to direct the municipal councils during the French Mandate, from the 1920s to the 1940s. They were in a close relationship with Aleppo, whose main merchant families had invested in the development of mechanised agriculture, in particular in cotton in the 1950s. The Raqqawi city dwellers were historically divided into two alliances (taḥāluf): the ʿAshārīn (who had arrived in the 1830s from the village of ʿAshara in Iraq, comprising the al-ʿUjayli, al-Blebil, al-Hassun, al-Hanata, al-Chahin, and al-Kuwayder), and the Akrād (“the Kurds” who originated from Milli and Tayy tribes: the Bakri-Kaʿakaji, Ramadan Agha, Hammad al-Jarf, Hanī and Chabli Salama). The Akrād comprised some Kurdish families and some Arab families, who intermarried. They were non-Kurdish speakers (Deheuwels 1979). The Bakri-Kaʿakaji, Jarf, Hanī and Ramadan Agha were Kurdish families who owned land around Raqqa (Ababsa 2009). There was some form of allegiance and social interaction between them and the ʿAsharin. In 1970, a Syrian sociologist wrote a description of Raqqa society: “the Akrad came from the north, but they were Arab in majority, they mixed with the inhabitants, and it was impossible to distinguish the Arab from the Kurd in the city of Raqqa” (Ayyash 1970).
9Some Kurds were present in the northern part of the governorate: one group near Manbij and another group in the northeast. However, the Mandate administration had traced Raqqa caza (district) borders specifically in order to reduce the number of Kurds in Raqqa (Ababsa 2009a). After 150,000 Kurds were deprived of their Syrian citizenship in 1962, being described as “coming from Turkey”, many of them joined the Baʿath Party in order to obtain positions and regain their citizenship. In the 1970s, an impoverished Kurdish neighbourhood (Ḥay al-Akrād) developed in the north-western part of the city. Prior to the war, Kurds formed between 10 and 15% of the total population of the Raqqa governorate (Dukhan et al. 2021).
10Although Raqqa had become the centre of a governorate in 1963, and the administrative capital of the Euphrates Project—with three dams, a new city and fifteen state farms—it did not benefit from any industrial investment. The implementation of the Euphrates Project strengthened the administrative functions of Raqqa and diversified the population of the city with thousands of Syrian and foreign engineers, skilled workers and displaced people from the Assad Dam coming to settle. This intermingling of people was accompanied by a reorganisation of social hierarchies under the leadership of the Baʿath Party. The main Raqqawi families have been excluded from municipal power since the 1963 revolution, in favour of low-key members of the Euphrates tribes (ʿAfadla, Walda, Sabkha, Beggara). However, they have managed to negotiate the non-application of the agrarian reform laws and own large tracts of land within the city and along the Euphrates. The tribal members newly appointed to several administrative positions benefited from their adhesion to the Baʿath Party, and the corrupt administration of the governorate’s wealth in cotton and wheat. During this period, half of Baʿath Party members were recruited from the Jazīra, and in 1992 a third of Raqqa governorate’s active population was affiliated to the Baʿath Party (Batatu 1999: 181).
11The accession of the members of the semi-nomadic tribes of the region (ʿAfadla, Sabkha, Beggara, Bou Hamid) to political and administrative power was denounced by Raqqa city-dwellers as the emergence of a lobby of shāwī (pejorative term used by the townspeople to designate the semi-nomadic tribes of the Euphrates sedentarised in the 1960s) (Khalaf 1981). The main urban Raqqa families were deprived of their leading political role. However, they kept large tracts of land, as they managed to evade the successive agrarian reforms between 1958 and 1966. They sent their children to the best universities in Beirut and Cairo, and also in Europe. A civil society developed, with many NGOs and cultural associations, as the art festivals organised by Taha Taha (Ababsa 2009a).
12From 2001, Bashar al-Assad’s regime embarked on a policy of economic liberalisation. In Raqqa, it resulted in the dismantling of state farms and their distribution to their former owners, workers and civil servants. But, without the means to exploit the land (seeds, fertilisers and tractors), most of the beneficiaries illegally resold the three hectares of land they had received. The transformation of ownership structures was radical: a transition from state farms to large private estates that benefited from state-subsidised water. An agrarian counter-reform took place in Raqqa in 2001–2003 on the fertile land of state farms, in favour of entrepreneurs from the semi-nomadic tribes (Ababsa 2005). The industrial under-equipment of the Jazīra made Raqqa’s intellectuals declare that their region was an “inner colony” of Syria, looted for the sole benefit of a corrupt minority in power. The proof was that it was not until more than fifty years after the cotton boom that the first state cotton-ginning plant was opened in their city in 2004 (Ababsa 2009a).
13Against this background of geopolitical upheaval and economic decommissioning, the entire Middle East suffered an exceptional drought, between 2007 and 2009, which decimated the sheep flocks. Thousands of rural people gathered in the informal neighbourhoods of North Raqqa, Ḥasaka and East Aleppo. The drought was aggravated by the suspension of subsidies on hydrocarbons decided in 2008, in a context of global economic crisis. On the eve of the “Arab Spring” of 2011, Raqqa, Syria’s fifth-largest city, had massive youth unemployment (one in two) and growing conservatism with the influence of Wahhabism from Saudi Arabia and jihadism from Iraq. Members of al-Qaeda were present in the Jazīra after the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the coalition forces led by the US.
Raqqa revolutionary civil council (March 2013)
14In November 2011, Raqqa was still rather quiet, to the point that president Bashar al-Assad decided to celebrate ʿEid al-Adha there. It was his first visit to the city, and the first by a President since Adib Chichakli’s visit in 1960. An internal document sent to the governor of Raqqa describes the amount of money to be distributed to two deputies, Mohammed Faisal al-Huwaidi, sheikh of the ʿAfadla and ʿAbdel-Mohsen Anwar Rakan al-Sawʿan, sheikh of the Sabkha tribe, and to the main tribal chiefs to guarantee the security of the presidential visit (Leverrier 2011). After this success, the regime organised the tenth meeting of Syrian tribes in Raqqa in January 2012 in order to publicise these allegiances (Dukan 2014).
15During 2012, thousands of internally displaced people from the countryside of Aleppo, Ḥamā and Ḥoms took refuge in Raqqa, which became “the hotel of Syria”. In February 2012, the regime used tanks against the youth participating in the Friday demonstrations. On the first anniversary of the revolution, a massacre occurred around the city clock, one of Raqqa’s main public spaces at the entrance to the souk (Yazigi 2018). Several local jihadist katība then federated to form the Liwāʾ thuwwār al-Raqqa (the Raqqa Revolutionaries Brigade) in September 2012, with close ties to the Free Syrian Army. In December 2012, this Brigade and a group of independent islamist katība, including young army defectors, formed the Raqqa Liberation Front (Jabhat Taḥrīr al-Raqqa).5 They started to surround the city in February 2013 and attacked the 17th Division of the Syrian army. The regime decided to withdraw in order to give the Kurds the opportunity to organise their own administration of the Jazīra.
16In March 2013, Raqqa managed to liberate itself from the Syrian government. A revolutionary municipal council, formed mainly of islamists, was created, with the support of the Harakat Aḥrār al-Shām. Raqqa’s autonomous government managed to take over a fully functioning regional capital, with all its administrative offices, courts, central bank and public hospitals (Donker 2022: 149). However, this new revolutionary municipal council did not have sufficient budget and it had to borrow cars from Aḥrār al-Shām (Donker 2022: 149; Heras & O’Leary 2013). Raqqa’s civil council comprised civil servants and engineers from the main city families. The population expressed its relief at having freed itself from the hated Syrian regime on several Facebook accounts. It included representatives of civil society organisations and the youth movements “Haqquna” and “Rashid’s Grandchildren”. In total, 41 civil organisations were created in the spring of 2013, bearing witness to a new freedom of public expression. Some intellectuals from the al-ʿUjayli, Blebil and Hassoun families, celebrating the liberation of their city, recalled on their Facebook pages that Raqqa had already been self-administered from August 1920 until December 1921, under the Bedouin chief Hajem ibn Muheid, and that it had been the last bastion of the Faysal Kingdom in Syria. For the Raqqawi, this episode has a place comparable to that of the Faysalian epic in the history of Arab nationalism: that of the tale of independence stolen by imperialist powers. In July 1998, during the first Raqqa Culture Festival, the novelist ʿAbd al-Salam al-ʿUjayli recalled the glory of this “State”:
Raqqa became, while the country continued to suffer the consequences of the war, the seat of a unique event that has no equal. […] Despite their limited knowledge of political science and state-building methods, our fathers succeeded in building an independent, well-administered government with high ideals. But their limited means on the one hand, and the policy of the great victorious countries on the other hand, did not allow this State to exist for more than a year and a half. 6
17However, Raqqa’s autonomous administration did not last long. During the summer of 2013, IS managed to take control of the city by subduing Jabhat al-Nosra. On 15th September 2013, the Free Syrian Army left Raqqa and signs announced that the city was now the centre of the “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria”. In November 2013, fourteen of Raqqa’s minor tribal chiefs pledged allegiance to ISIS (Tabler 2017: 3). They soon regretted this political choice under the brutal Islamic administration, which benefited very few of its children, but mostly benefited foreign fighters. Raqqa’s core families had no choice but to pay smugglers US $500 per person to reach Urfa7 and, from there, Europe. Some pro-regime families moved to al-Lādhiqiyya.8 Members of Raqqa’s revolutionary brigade went north to ʿAyn al-ʿArab (Kobane), joining the People’s Protection Units (YPG: Yekîneyên Parastina Gel) against ISIS (Tamimi 2015). The administration of the city under IS was carried out by terror, with public executions and persecution of civilians. Islamic taxes were collected and penalties were applied for engaging in prohibited activities such as smoking, installing a satellite dish and, for women, wearing tight-fitting clothes. The city’s economy remained sluggish under IS, due to the regime’s 30% tax on all products entering the Raqqa region, but above all because of the lack of fuel, which had an impact on all activity. As of January 2015, electricity from the Tabqa dam no longer reached the city because IS preferred to sell it to the regime.
18Yet, Raqqawi civil society remained active against the IS jihadists. Taggers drew anti-IS messages. Women set up underground schools in their apartments. Spontaneous demonstrations took place when the crosses of the city’s three churches were destroyed in 2014, with the slogan “United, the people of Raqqa remain united”. Activists created the website “Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently”.9 Raqqa’s rich civil society managed to resist nearly a year, but progressively, all non-religious activities were forbidden. The Uways al-Qarany and ʿAmmar bin Yasir Shia mausoleum, built by Iran in the 1990s, (Ababsa 2009b) was destroyed by the Islamic State in April 2014.
19As early as November 2016, the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Free Syrian Army, supported by the Kurdish militia of the People’s Protection Units and the armed forces of the coalition, started to prepare for the battle to retake the city.
Raqqa’s two conflicting civil councils (2016–2018)
20While fighting to liberate Raqqa, the SDF forces created the RCC in April 2017 within the ʿAin ʿIssa IDP camp, 40km north of Raqqa. Most of the refugees in this camp were then opposed to Kurdish federalism and to SDF local administration (Yacoubian 2017). When Raqqa was conquered in October 2017 by the People’s Defense Units (YPG), Kurdish soldiers brandished Öcalan’s portrait and Democratic Union Party (PYD – Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat) flags. Faced with the negative reaction of the Raqqawis, they were promptly withdrawn, to reappear after October 2019.
21For two years, a few Raqqawi opponents based in Turkey tried to set up an alternative administration for their city. Saʿad Shawish, the former mayor of the Tell Abyad 2016 autonomous civil council, announced the creation of a “Raqqa Civilian Council” from Gazientep, the seat of the Syrian opposition government. Its members were affiliated to the former teachers’ union of Raqqa. They contributed to magazines such al-Harmel 10 (with Turkish support) and Enab Baladi, created in Dārayā in 2014. This civil council was placed under the Syrian Coalition President Riyad Seif, Secretary-General Nazir Hakim, and the Head of the Syrian Interim Government (SIG), Jawad Abū Hatab. Saʿad Shawish categorically rejected Raqqa’s integration into Rojava and stressed that Kurds do not have to rule Raqqa, as they “make up less than 15% of the population of the Raqqa governorate”. In May 2017, the Syrian interim government in Gazientep organised elections to appoint the chief and ten members of Raqqa Provincial Council. “Raqqa is for his Syrian sons and daughters, for no one else”, he added (National Coalition of Revolution and Opposition Forces, 2017). Raqqawi opponents in Urfa denounce the federalist plan announced by the SDF for the Raqqa region (Hassan 2018). In February 2018, Saʿad Shawish went to the Congress in Washington to protest against the SDF civil council. However, he remained rather isolated from Raqqa, and had very few supporters within the city. Deprived of credibility, this council dissolved in 2018.
22The SDF forces, “Qasad” (Qiwwat Sūriyya al-Dimuqrāṭiyya), have progressively managed somehow to secure acceptable living conditions and have won local support from intermediate tribal leaders. RCC was led for four years by Leila Mustafa, a Kurdish engineer from Raqqa in his mid-thirties, and Mahmoud Bursan, the main Walda sheikh, whose land was submerged by the reservoir in 1974. It has 120 members, 18 Kurds and 102 Arabs. The skill of Bursan and the SDF was to have been able to convince members of the civil council who liberated the city in March 2013 to join them. Leila Mustafa stayed in post for four years, while several local Arab co-presidents have been regularly replaced in order to rotate and reduce power. In addition, some former supporters of IS are now working for the RCC, as a way to cleanse their reputation. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights points to several former IS agents within the RCC, such as the chief of the reconstruction committee, and the chief of the food distribution committee (SOHR 2019). According to sheikh Shlash al-Huwaidi they are “two-faced people”, who had to support IS or would have been killed (Sly & Martins 2020).
23Although presented as a representative body, with members of the Arab, Kurd and Turkmen communities, Raqqa Civil Council is not elected, and in fact has very little decision-making power. Three members of the PYD take all the main decisions and “real power is wielded by Kurdish elements behind the scenes” (Yacoubian 2017, Van Wilgenburg 2020). Day-to-day decisions are discussed with the Arab members, Sunnis and Christians, but not the strategic decisions, which are kept secret under PYD direction (ICG 2021: 12).
The assassination of sheikh Bashir al-Huwaidi
24Major tribal figures did not affiliate themselves with either of these two councils. Notable among these was sheikh Bashir al-Huwaidi of the ʿAfadla, the brother of Mohammed al-Huwaidi, a former Raqqa deputy who supported Assad,11 and who currently lives in Damascus. Sheikh Bashir had created the Raqqa Revolution Brigade to guarantee security within the city. In 2018, the SDF disbanded the brigade and arrested its commander Abū ʿIssa and a number of its fighters. They were transferred to the town of Rumailan in al-Ḥasaka province and placed under house arrest there. This was a way for the SDF to assert their control over the city, as Bashir al-Huwaidi was a potential rival who could have rallied the tribes to re-establish an autonomous administration.
25On 2nd November 2018, sheikh Bashir al-Huwaidi was shot in his car, in the street in Raqqa. Two hours after the murder, a report was released by the “Amaq”, a news agency affiliated to IS, under the title: “Targeting the apostate (Bashir al-Faisal al-Huwaidi) one of the heads of infidelity and apostasy in the city of Raqqa”. It attributes the murder to IS, and described al-Huwaidi as: "one of the heads of infidelity and apostasy collaborators with PKK”, and warned that “those who helped the apostates will die sooner or later.” However, some Raqqawi journalists doubted the authenticity of the report. They published a paper in Arabic on this assassination in RaqqaPost on 16th November 2018,12 in which they underlined several errors in the wording, for instance the fact that the term “city of Raqqa” was used, whereas IS usually writes “Wilayat of Raqqa”. They added that al-Huwaidi was no apostate, and that he could easily have been killed during the four years of IS reign. Raqqawis based in Urfa suggested that Turkey wanted to reach out to sheikh al-Huwaidi in preparation for an imminent intervention by the Turkish army in Raqqa, and that this could have been a reason for the SDF to eliminate him. It might be possible, as the regime was seeking to regain social ground that would pave the way for its return to the region, and having the sheikh on their side would have been an asset.
26In response to this dramatic event, several Arab leaders decided to quit the SDF municipal council in November 2018. The doubts about his fate suspended the reconciliation process. During the funeral of sheikh al-Huwaidi, the tribes of Hleissāt, Wālda, ʿAmerāt and Sabkha condemned the SDF forces and accused any Arab working with them of being traitors. The members of the al-Shaban tribe al-Sabkha withdrew from the RCC. Members of the Raqqa opposition started to consider Raqqa’s People’s Assembly as a war assembly supporting the Syrian regime.13
27Over the years, in the absence of a local alternative, in an extremely deteriorated economic context, and with the fear of the return of the regime, Raqqawis decided to work for the RCC. Impoverished, threaten by the Islamic State resurgence, they aligned behind some prominent Arab leaders supporting the SDF in the Jazīra. At first it was the Bedouin sheikh of the Shammar, sheikh Hamdi Daham al-Hadi al-Jarba (and its Jaysh al-Sanadeed), who was appointed co-governor of the al-Ḥasaka province within the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) created in 2018 by the Syrian Democratic Council directed by Kurds (but he died in November 2022), and later the Christian Syriac Militia and some members of Jaysh Thuwar al-Raqqa.
Stabilisation and reconstruction operations
28Contrary to the rest of Syria, Raqqa has managed to undertake reconstruction, which is presented as “stabilisation” operations of the SDF forces. International donors have provided financial support to the SDF and local NGOs, through the Syrian Recovery Trust Fund (SRTF). The latter is a multi-donor assistance body operating in the north east and north west of Syria, in areas not yet under the control of the Syrian regime. It took on a wider role in April 2018, when the Trump administration suspended the US $200 million grant to support the reconstruction efforts. Saudi Arabia contributed US $100 million for “stabilisation projects” in north east Syria, in areas that had been controlled by IS and were now controlled by SDF and US backed forces. The UAE pledged US $50 million.14
Raqqa, year zero (2017)
29In the summer of 2017, from 6th Jume to 17th October, a five-month military campaign was fought against IS by the Free Syrian Army and the Kurdish militias of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) on the ground, and 4,000 US troops. Raqqa was then the “worst place on Earth”, according to UN Special Envoy Jan Egeland, who demanded the creation of evacuation corridors for the 20,000 civilians used by IS as a human shield. A total of 2,323 civilians, mostly jihadist hostages, reportedly died there, including 1,321 killed by coalition bombs, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights.15 Amnesty International has documented 1,600 civilian deaths.16 Many Raqqawis had no choice but to stay because IS snipers prevented them from leaving. Some believed that the coalition forces would not bomb civilians (Enab Baladi 2017).
Fig. 2 – Destroyed and standing buildings in Raqqa in 2017.

(Mahmoud Bali [VOA], Public domain, Wikimedia Commons).
Most building have lost their windows and balconies, however they are standing and are inhabited.
30In 2017, 80% of the buildings were destroyed, as well as all the infrastructure (Reach 2019) (fig. 2). Raqqa mourns the loss of 11,000 persons during the four years of IS rule, from October 2013 to the final battle in October 2017. Most of Raqqa’s vital forces, doctors, engineers, journalists and intellectuals have fled to Turkey, particularly to Sanliurfa, which is 150km north of the city.
Basic infrastructure reparation with pro SDF contractors
31In 2017, the RCC’s task was immense: it had to clear the rubble from the streets and alleys, and reinstall the water. When the SDF forces moved from the ʿAin ʿIssa Internally Displaced camp in October 2017 to Raqqa, nearly every building had been booby-trapped with mines by IS. The first Civil Council task was to clear the streets and public spaces of rubble. However, the residents started to complain that only two demining robots had been provided by the US. Families had to ask their local neighbourhood council, created by the SDF, to request an inspection of their homes before they could return. But the local authority only managed to perform ten clearance tasks a week across the city during the autumn of 2017. Some RCC employees claimed clearance fees of US $400 to $800 per building, and charged US $100 per hour for the use of backhoe loaders.17 Those who could not pay had to sell the steel reinforcements bars of the building. A used-steel market appeared in the industrial district of Rumeïla. Some returnees hired young men to throw home-made bombs into the entrance of each building in order to explode any mines that might have been concealed there by IS.18
32During the first year, the priority was given to the reconstruction of roads and bridges, crucial for all logistics: Raqqa’s old bridge, Raqqa Samra bridge, al-Khatoniya bridge, Shneina bridge, Khass bridge, ʿUjayli bridge and ar-Reyyash bridge (Khalil 2019). Then the RCC had to hold burials for the victims fallen under the rubble, and to identify the corpses in the common graves in the main public gardens. Unfortunately, the Raqqawi employees did not have proper training in rubble removal and, as a result, former IS jails were destroyed, including their walls with all the graffiti that could have helped in the identification of the corpses of the victims.
33As in any Syrian city, the bidding for public infrastructure is a profitable operation and a way to guarantee support from local contractors. The RCC replaced several local NGOs with their own favoured contractor. This was the case for Al-Furat company which won the US $1 million bid to pave three streets: South Corniche, North Corniche and Hazima. However, the contract was finally awarded to Al-Shimal company by the RCC. When, in August 2019, Al-Furat director Hassan Fawaz al-Qassab protested, he was arrested and sent to the coalition security base in al-Shaddadi on allegations that he had supported ISIS. The following day, the activist Ahmed Halshoum, head of the Inmaa organisation in Raqqa, was arrested on charges of hiding an IS cell. According to Dareen Khalifa, “SDF is suspicious of civil society”. As most of them are new to Raqqa, they rely on local informers, who have vested interests and can accuse neighbours of having supported IS in order to “settle personal and professional scores” (ICG 2021).
34The connection to electricity is political, as in all Syrian cities. Street lighting is provided in priority to the areas where the SDF have their offices, and not to all of the residential areas. Mashlab east neighbourhood and the industrial neighbourhood in the eastern part of the city, were among the first to be connected to the grid in 2018, followed by the centre and Rumeyla, in the west of the city. The Tabqa dam produces 300 megawatts, but most of the electricity is directed to eastern Aleppo, and to Ḥasaka. Within Raqqa, it has reached the eastern part of the governorate in Dibsi Faraj and in Sabkha, where the Syrian government distributes the salaries to Raqqa civil servants. Mansura and the Rashid farms are receiving electricity too. Electricity is provided very cheaply at 1000 SYP per connexion (US $1.2) in these areas. But the majority of people have to buy electricity from the 43 municipal generators,19 at the cost of 10,000 SYP for 10 hours of electricity).20 It is expensive, when salaries are between 50,000 and 100,000 SYP (US $200). The water is polluted and residents who receive running water must use filters. Most have to buy water. An NGO distributes water for free. The RCC forbids the use of internet from Turkey, and has closed several internet shops in al-Mashlab, asking their owners to connect to the Iraqi Kurdistan internet network.21
35Eleven hospitals and six medical centres in Raqqa were operational in 2019 (ACU 2019). In 2022, the city had 394 schools, 90 of which were fully renovated. Only one child in three was enrolled in school, due to the lack of sufficient classrooms and the extreme destitution of parents. The UNICEF is promoting a “self-learning” curriculum adapted to the crisis, with only four subjects: mathematics, science, Arabic and English, which Raqqawis found was adapted to their children’s level. However, as it does not include Islamic religious studies, they follow the government curriculum for that subject. In 2018–2019, the primary schools were mixed, which was a novelty, and at first, they used Syrian government textbooks. In 2019, the SDF started to develop its own curriculum, with a strong accent on the empowerment of women, which was not well received by the local population. Most of all, its content was criticised by Raqqawis for containing a map of Kurdistan that includes the Rojava and Raqqa within it, which is contested by the population.22
Raqqa’s new inhabitants
36Progressively, during the winter of 2017, Raqqawis and IDP families returned to the destroyed city, mostly from the several camps located around the city, and very few from Turkey.23 The political conditions for a safe return to Raqqa were not yet in place in 2018. The newcomers were mainly internally displaced persons looking for cheap accommodation. They were returning to the rather less-destroyed areas of the western and northern neighbourhoods, while the city centre and the zone within the ʿAbbasid walls was still in a bad condition (see figure 1).
37According to several UN reports, Raqqa had around 300,000 inhabitants in 2022, nearly its pre-war population (of 370,000) (ACU 2019). Two thirds of former Raqqawis are still in exile in Turkey, Jordan and Europe. Al-ʿAraby newspaper stated that only 30% of Raqqa’s population had come back by 2019 (Bashir 2019). Raqqawis residing in Turkey are allowed to cross the borders and visit their relatives in Raqqa for three months between the two ʿEid holidays: ʿEid al-Fitr and ʿEid al-Adha. They are therefore resuming contact with their relatives, but the fear of reprisals against opponents of the Syrian regime, actors of the liberation of the city in 2013, is too great for them to return permanently. Several opponents of the regime and of IS were assassinated in the heart of the Turkish city of Sanliurfa in 2015.
38Half of the population are returnees (fig. 3). A study of 462 households living in Raqqa provides information about where the IDPs originated from: 42% come from Dayr al-Zūr, 27% from Raqqa governorate, 14% from Aleppo, 10% from Ḥoms, 6% from Ḥasaka, and only 1% from Idlib (Kivelä & Gorevan 2021). Former inhabitants of Raqqa and internally displaced persons rent partially destroyed apartments for US $30 to $60 per month (30,000 SYP in 2018). The owners ask to be paid three months in advance, and some even ask to be paid in dollars.
Fig. 3 – Spatial distribution of internally displaced persons in camps and informal settlements in northern Syria in 2021.

(OCHA, Humanitarian Needs Overview. Syrian Arab Republic, 2021.)
39In 2019, 60% of the former housing stock was in a habitable condition, some with tarpaulins instead of windows (ACU 2019). The Raqqawi families who returned are renovating their apartments at their own expense. It costs around US $1,000 to rebuild basic walls and windows on a ground floor building in the al-ʿUjayli neighbourhood.24 As a ton of cement costs US $131, some are only using plaster. Their incomes have become too low to continue paying rent elsewhere. Some international organisations (Mercy Corps, ACTED, People in Need) are helping families with rebuilding costs up to US $1,000 (Masri 2020). After the 2021 drought, and in the current context of lack of security with kidnapping for ransom, a new wave of migrants headed to Turkey (3,000 in March 2022).25
Expropriation and absentee law: the question of land and property rights in Raqqa
40The question of land and property rights is a major political issue in Raqqa.26 Most former residents did not have registered property but only ḥujja (proof) titles, as is the case in most Syrian cities (Léna 2012, Clerc 2014). In addition, as their neighbourhood has been partly destroyed, owners have faced difficulties in claiming their property rights, as their ḥujja refer to surrounding buildings and physical points which may no longer exist. Most of the remaining owners have had no choice but to sell their apartment for far less than its actual price, which is a form of sale under constraint (Hallaj 2017, Vignal 2021). The price of an apartment in Raqqa used to be around US $20,000. However, in the current conditions, brokers manage to purchase property ten times cheaper at US $2,000 (6 million SYP in 2021), much less even than the value of the building materials (Omar 2021a). This is also due to the fact that the repair cost of the common parts (stairs, entrance, roof, pipes) of a destroyed building is much too high for the co-owners, who prefer to sell if they have the possibility of moving back to Turkey.
41According to some Raqqa residents, RCC is favouring the settlement of displaced Syrians from other governorates in order to rely on a docile population that would effectively be beholden to it. They allocate empty buildings to the newcomers. The RCC is using property confiscation as retaliation against all families accused of having supported IS in Raqqa. More than 80 buildings have been allocated to RCC partisans (Masri 2020). According to Raqqawis, the Raqqa Civil Council is perpetrating these confiscations without any legal decision, “as IS used to do”. Several former Raqqawi apartment owners have found their property allocated to another family. When they complained, the SDF offered them another confiscated house.27 Residents complain that some people are renting their apartments only in order to receive international assistance, then keep the repaired apartments for their relatives.28
42Expelling social groups accused of being “terrorists” has been a strategy of the Syrian State since 2012 to consolidate its territorial gains. Legislative Decree 40 of 2012 ordered the demolition of buildings that did not have a permit in all informal areas, basically half of the Syrian urban fabric. Informal settlements are the ground base of the regime opponents (Baumann 2019). Starting in April 2018, Raqqa Civil Council started to follow the newly promulgated Urban Planning Law 10. It allowed cities and towns across Syria to earmark zones for development or reconstruction, and to set up real estate development companies to create new loyalist neighbourhoods. Property owners concerned were given only one month to claim for compensation. According to Maha Yahya (2018), this is a “politic of dispossession”, as some six million Syrian refugees were not able to come back to defend their property rights.
43Following enactment of this law 10 (2018), RCC set up an “Absentee Property Committee” in June 2018. It gave the absentees three days to come back and claim their property, otherwise their homes would be confiscated.29 According to a former Syrian judge, ʿAbdulrazzal al-Hussein, this is unconstitutional on several levels: it comes from an illegitimate authority, and the notion of “absent” does not apply to refugees or IDP. “According to article 203 of the Syrian Personal Law, an absentee is a person whose fate is unknown” (Hammoud 2020). The topic is very sensitive. The president of RCC Social Justice Committee, who oversaw the collection and preservation of all documents for civilian property ownership, died in 2018, with it being rumoured that he was poisoned.30 On 5th August 2020, the SDF issued a controversial law aimed at “protecting the property of the absent”. It contained 21 articles allowing the autonomous administration to control vacant properties, and preventing their owners from renting or selling them. After a campaign on social media against the SDF, this law was withdrawn. Nevertheless, the confiscated apartments were not restituted despite the international coverage given to the issue of property confiscation in Raqqa in September 2020.31
44Raqqawis have no possibility of claiming their property rights under the current administration, and this cannot constitute solid grounds for the maintenance of the RCC. They are not providing any possibility of applying the 2005 Pinheiro Principles of Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and Displaced Persons, which provide practical guidance for governments, international organisations and NGOs to restore Housing Land and Property (HLP) rights after violent conflict (ECOSOC 2005). These principles are designed to facilitate the return of refugees to their homes, by restoring the status quo ante bellum of housing, land and property, to facilitate land and property restitution mechanisms (Paglione 2008: 392–393). The SDF has deployed in Raqqa exclusionary reconstruction frameworks, and denied certain groups accused of having supported IS the right to return. All these elements could be described as “urbicide”. Urbicide is the deliberate destruction of the built environment, as a place of identity and belonging, to install a new urban order (Graham 2004, Sharp 2016, Abou Zainedin & Fakhani 2019). The SDF has also used destruction of specific areas as a political strategy to condemn opponents, and liberate land for new profitable housing schemes for its supporters.
45Over the years, Raqqa Civil Council has developed a patronage policy to win allegiance, through the distribution of confiscated apartments and the hiring of civil servants and policemen in Raqqa.
In search of allegiance: the SDF patronage policy
46According to its supporters, the main strength of the SDF is that it is a “multi-ethnic” administration, and not a Kurdish only one. Indeed, in this Arab majority area, 90% of the SDF administration in Raqqa is composed of Arabs (Van Wilgenburg 2020). In 2021, the AANES managed to consolidate a budget of 2.47 trillion SYP (US $1,028 million). Of this, 80 bn SYP (US $33.2 million) are for salaries (7,000 employees). It pays salaries to 120,000 persons in the three governorates of Raqqa, Dayr al-Zūr and Ḥasaka. 52% of the budget is allocated to the local regions, and 48% to the general administration (North Press Agency 2021). It is financed by the sale of oil controlled by the American army, which amounts to US $45 million per month. The SDF have hired 70,000 soldiers, 30,000 policemen and 150,000 civil servants in the three governorates (Haenni & Quesnay 2020: 7). However, this patronage policy is not sufficient to convince the youth to accept the forced conscription campaigns. Most of all, Raqqawi children do not want to die for the new Kurdish administration.
New institutions in a blur economic context
47According to the former co-President of Raqqa City Council, Leila Mustapha, it employed 9,000 people, including 5,000 teachers in 2021 (ICG 2021). The RCC pays salaries of around US $90 (260,000 SYP), which is three times the regime salaries. This an important reason for Raqqawis to support the RCC. However, some employees continue to practice petty corruption on a daily basis. The Raqqa Civil Council has set up several departments: Planning and Studies Committee, Social Affairs and Labour Committee (SALC), Economic Committee, Agriculture and Irrigation Committee, Engineering Evaluation Committee, Land Confiscation Committee, Energy and Communication Committee, Health Committee, Education Committee, Women’s Committee, Self-Defence Committee. In the absence of administrative tribunals, civil servants answer to the Kurdish cadros (Haenni & Quesnay 2020). PYD members are on the Legislative Council and the Executive Council. This entails corruption but also negociations, giving some leeway to the Raqqawis.
48The civil society is still very weak. A few Raqqawis manage to work for the 33 local and international NGOs active in the city (Save the Children, ACTED), receiving relatively high salaries (around US $500). The rest of the population continue to receive low government salaries, in particular women, and men above the age of conscription, who can go to the city of Maʿdan to receive their money. With the considerable inflation, regime-paid salaries have become low: in July 2021, the minimum wage was fixed at 71,515 SYP per month (US $21.6). However, transportation costs to reach Maʿdan are high, and the road is dangerous, with pro-regime Iranian militias asking for tolls (Omar 2021a). These salaries are much needed in a poor city. Three quarters of the population are relying on support to buy food and basic goods (Wight 2021).
49With the support of the Syrian Recovery Trust Fund, the AANES administration has helped to repair some of Raqqa’s irrigation networks, and has provided a few motorised pumps.32 Harvesters have been given to cooperatives in order to redevelop the agricultural sector. Although nearly 60% of the irrigation network has been repaired, production is very low as only half the former areas are irrigated. It was less than one million tons of cereals in 2021 and 1.5 million tons in 2022 at country level,33 of which 45% is produced in the Jazīra. For comparison, Raqqa governorate produced 700,000 tons of wheat in 2011–2012 and al-Ḥasaka governorate 933,000 tons. At that time the irrigated areas in Raqqa were 141,966 hectares (of which 86,993 ha were privately owned and 54,973 collectively owned).34
50The AANES is criticised for monopolising the purchase and sale of vital goods (flour, sugar, cement, construction iron and agricultural fertilisers). It has instituted custom duties on goods imported from areas controlled by the Syrian armed opposition (5%) and 4% for goods coming from areas controlled by the regime (Tabqa and Dayr al-Zūr). The fees on goods imported from the Kurdistan Regional Government across the Semalka border crossing range from 2% to 7%.35 In a context of cereal scarcity, due to the war and the drought, the regime and the AANES are in competition to purchase the Jazīra production: the regime buys at 2,000 SYP the kilo, while the AANES at 2,200 SYP for good quality wheat (this creates some leeway to negociate the price down). The SDF have forbidden the sale of wheat, barley, corn and cotton without a certificate of origin issued by its own administration (Agricultural Development Company). However, the costs of transport push some producers to sell to Raqqa grain merchants at a lower price.36 This control over all crops does not foster local economic development. In the absence of sufficient fodder, a lot of cattle died during the 2021 drought.
Feudal conflicts and tribal justice
51In order to develop functioning institutions and the better to anchor its legitimacy, the RCC set up a tribal court, in order for the tribes to solve their own disputes, but it retains final arbitration. Several tribal sheikhs have signed an agreement to draw up a list of “disciplinary measures” to resolve disputes. The mediation places are the sheikh maḍāfa-s or guest houses dedicated to offering hospitality, discussing political matters, performing social obligations and gaining notability (Ababsa 2001). Sheikh Shlash al-Huwaidi, a cousin of Bashir Faysal al-Huwaidi, holds a major maḍāfa. “Blood price” has been set at 8 million SYP (US $2,500) for the killing of a man, and half the amount for a major injury (such as losing a foot) (Omar 2022).
52However, Raqqa civil administration is accused of letting the feuds between tribes grow, in order to control them better through mediation, and to limit the emergence of an alternative local power. Indeed, cases of vendettas are numerous in Raqqa and also in Dayr al-Zūr. The last of these bloody incidents was the outbreak of clan fighting between the al-Bosraya and al-Sakhani in 2021. It started with a verbal altercation between two people from the two clans on Tal Abyad Street in the centre of Raqqa city on 24th April 2021, which escalated to the use of firearms, killing two people from the two clans and seriously wounding another. Tribal dignitaries and elders held the PYD militia fully responsible for the expansion of clan clashes inside Raqqa, and for the lack of rapid intervention.
53Tribal mediation and the SDF court do not provide either the independence of justice nor the rule of law. On the contrary, it is seen by the Raqqawis as a way to fuel divisions between clans and threaten the social fabric of the city, especially with the state of insecurity and the proliferation of weapons. The creation of a tribal court is criticised as an obstacle to a democratic, non-tribal society. Local sheikhs recall that local tribes have developed strategies of inter-clan marriages as a tool to overcome tribal divisions, in order to rebuild the local society, as used to be the custom in the 19th century among the two alliances (ʿAshārīn and Akrād).
The resistance to SDF forced conscription
54The regional situation remains very tense since the withdrawal of the US army from the northern part of Ḥasaka and Raqqa governorates in October 2019. The Turkish army has occupied the northern part of Raqqa governorate since its “Spring of Peace” operation, a strip of land 30km deep and 120km long. This Turkish occupation is intended to block the creation of a continuous Rojava,37 separating ʿAfrīn from the rest of “Syrian Kurdistan”. The Turkish army bombed several PKK positions north of Raqqa in November 2022, in retaliation for the terrorist attack in Istanbul on 13th November 2022. The southern Euphrates river bank is occupied by the Syrian regime with Iranian militias.
55The SDF struggles to provide security, although its forces numbered 55,000 men in 2017 throughout the Jazīra, including 31,000 Kurds and 24,000 Arabs, and 70,000 men in 2019 (Van Wilgenburg 2020: 105). They are supported by only 500 American soldiers, mainly based in Ḥasaka to protect the oil fields. The police forces are backed by SDF internal security forces, the “Asayish”, and by the Yekineyen Anti Terror (YAT) armed forces. They act brutally in search of remaining Islamic State cells. Raqqa residents still live in a state of fear, afraid of robbery, looting and abductions. Security is a way of controlling the residents.38 No one can move at night.
56In this tense context, the SDF administration started forced conscription campaigns as early as May 2018 in Raqqa governorate but not, however, in the predominantly Arab cities of Raqqa and Manbij. In June 2019, the SDF ratified a conscription law which imposed a “duty of self-defence” in the areas within its control, applying to all men over 18, including IDPs who have lived in the region for more than five years. It also applies to the makhtūmīn, the Kurds without papers (since 1963). With a duration of 12 months, the time served is shorter than the period of compulsory military service in the regime’s forces. However, the residents do not want to comply, pointing out that thousands of volunteers are already serving, and fearing that they might be sent to the front and to a certain death.
57After the October 2019 incursion of Turkey into Syrian territory, the Syrian Democratic Forces decided to create brigades of young local residents through most contested conscription campaigns. On 26th January 2021, the Defence office of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria dispatched a circular calling for men under 30 (i.e., those born between 1990 and 2001) to fulfil their “duty of self-defence”, including the residents of Raqqa.39 Most men tried to escape the order. The SDF created patrols to check youth in the streets and in restaurants and erected checkpoints on the key roads. People went into hiding. Without a paper attesting that their duty had been fulfilled, no one could continue to work. A social media campaign with the hashtag “I want to stay in Raqqa, born in the nineties” was launched. Men refused to serve for 12 months, because they would lose their jobs, and would be sent to the fronts and left to their fate (Qasab 2021).
58Several demonstrations took place, organised by teachers who refused the conscriptions. Schools went on strike. The SDF has arrested 61 teachers since 2021 for teaching the Syrian government curriculum and 550 were dismissed from their jobs for refusing conscription in the three governorates of al-Ḥasaka, Raqqa and Dayr al-Zūr.40 Lists of non-conscripted teachers were distributed at checkpoints and the streets were raided in search of teachers. Those who refused to serve 40 days in a centre then from 6 to 12 months, were dismissed, and their salaries suspended. The recruitment of teachers was undertaken by the Education committee in coordination with the Defence committee within Raqqa Civil Council. Negociations took place concerning the 950 teachers who were of military age, out of 5,000 in Raqqa governorate. Teachers do not usually join the regular army ranks. Some went on strike in Mazraʿat al-Yarmūk, north of Raqqa. The SDF answered that teachers have to serve “with pen and weapons”, but negotiated with the teachers and agreed that 10% would be withdrawn every six months from the total.41
59The Islamic State is still active in Raqqa countryside. In December 2022, the SDF forces lost six members during the attack of a jail by the Islamic State to free 200 prominent fighters. This was reminiscent of the big IS attack against al-Sina prison of al-Ḥasaka in January 2022.42 Since this attack, Raqqa has been under a curfew.
The ambiguous position of the SDF toward the Syrian regime
60In October 2019, the Syrian regime forces entered the western part of Raqqa governorate, and took control of Tabqa, on the Euphrates dam, Sabkha and Maʿdan south of Raqqa. In the towns of Maskana, Reṣāfa, Sabkha and Maʿdan, under the regime rule, there is looting, extortion and repression of the youth by security forces (ICG 2021). The Sabkha sheikhs living on the other bank of the Euphrates have called the SDF to take back the control of their region, as they have to pay heavy tolls to the Iranian militias controlling the road to Dayr al-Zūr and Iraq (Omar 2021a).
61Most Raqqawis fear the return of the regime. Nearly every Raqqa household has a member wanted for evading conscription or for political resistance. According to leaders of an anti-regime demonstration in November 2019 in Raqqa, 32,000 persons are in fear of persecution by the regime (Haenni & Quesnay 2020: 10). This fear is based on current pressure by the Russians to allow Kurds to administer only the border region in al-Ḥasaka governorate, while giving back Arab majority areas such as Raqqa and Dayr al-Zūr to the regime (Van Wilgenburg 2020: 109). Dozens of Raqqawis fled to Turkey in October 2019, fearing arrest (Petkova 2020).
62In January 2022, the Syrian government tried to win back the allegiance of Raqqa’s population through “settlement” operations in exchange for the renewal of administrative papers and the removal from wanted lists. In exchange for the restitution of heavy weapons and allegiance to the regime, prisoners would be released and the names of people wanted on political charges would be erased from the regime lists. These campaigns did not work in Darʿa, as people who signed in 2018 were later prosecuted by the regime, as their names had not been removed from all the lists. The regime met several times with local tribe leaders without success.43 The majority of tribal leaders are against these operations. Sheikh Hamed al-Faraj of the Walda, a supporter of the SDF, claimed that the Raqqawi population prefer to build a democratic nation with the SDF than to settle with the regime.44 However, the SANA news agency published pictures of men signing the settlement deal.
Conclusion
63Seven years after its destruction in October 2017, the city of Raqqa is still facing major governance, security and reconstruction challenges. The RCC, led by the SDF, has managed to direct reconstruction operations and set up an administration, with acceptable living conditions for both former supporters of the regime, former rebels and even those who have collaborated with the Islamic State. From this point of view, the situation in Raqqa is much better than in the cities of Aleppo, Ḥoms, Ḥamā and Darʿa, which were retaken by the regime. The RCC is working to stabilise its own power in the city. The local population gives “passive support” (Van Wilgenburg 2020) to the Kurdish administration, in the absence of better-paid alternatives, in the context of an economic crisis and high inflation since 2020. The SDF have imposed monopolies and tolls on the sale of crops, with is making the economy sluggish.
64Raqqa Civil Council has created several local councils at neighbourhood level, with the participation of women, which is publicised as an expression of local democracy. But these councils have almost no budget and no power and, in reality, the RCC imposes its own order, directing reconstruction operations in its own interests, with offensive urban planning including the eviction of rebel groups and the reallocation of central land to its supporters. It does not allow civil society to organise nor to express the local political aspirations. It is accused by local sheikhs of fuelling tribal divisions, specifically by the creation of a tribal court that is seen as an obstacle to a non-clanic democratic system.
65Most of all, in the context of a renewal of the threat from IS, the residents of Raqqa are worried about a possible reconciliation deal between the SDF and the Syrian regime, as previously occurred in October 2019. Nearly every household has a member wanted for evading conscription or for political resistance. The thousands of Raqqa inhabitants who are refugees outside the country do not feel that the political conditions are safe for them to return, as many of them supported the movement to liberate the city from Bashar al-Assad’s regime in March 2013. They fear the return of the regime to the city. The Syrian opposition is calling for the intervention of the UN to create a transition regime for a duration of ten years. The motto of the short-lived 2013 Raqqa rebels’ Local Council is more relevant than ever: “Nothing is more precious than freedom, and the worst sin is to steal it.”
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National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces 2017
National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, “Raqqa Provincial Council Rejects PYD’s Administrative Division of Northern Syria,” 31 July, <http://en.etilaf.org/all-news/local-news/raqqa-provincial-council-rejects-pyd-s-administrative-division-of-northern-syria.html>.
North Press Agency 2021
North Press Agency, “Syria’s Autonomous Administration Determines 2021 Public Budget,” 28 April, <https://npasyria.com/en/58443/>.
OCHA 2018
OCHA, “A Raqqa City Strategic Response Plan,” Reliefweb, 14 August, <https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/ar-raqqa-city-strategic-response-plan-july-2018>.
OCHA 2021
OCHA, Syrian Arab Republic: Humanitarian Needs Overview 2021, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, <https://page.hn/m5c3aw>.
Omar 2021a
Omar (al-) Hussam, “Iran-Backed Militias Wreaking Havoc on Raqqa Countryside – Locals Demanding Liberation,” Enab Baladi, 30 April, <https://english.enabbaladi.net/archives/2021/04/iran-backed-militias-wreaking-havoc-on-raqqa-countryside-locals-demanding-liberation/>.
Omar 2021b
Omar (al-) Hussam, “Civilians in Raqqa Selling Destroyed Properties Under Coercion,” 15 July, <https://english.enabbaladi.net/archives/2021/07/civilians-in-raqqa-selling-destroyed-properties-under-coercion/>.
Omar 2021c
Omar (al-) Hussam, “Conscription by SDF Agonizing Raqqa Residents,” Enab Baladi, <https://english.enabbaladi.net/archives/2021/02/conscription-by-sdf-agonizing-raqqa-residents/>.
Omar 2022
Omar (al-) Hussam, “SDF Disavows; Who is Responsible for Frequent Clan Fighting in Raqqa?,” Enab Baladi, 6 September, <https://english.enabbaladi.net/archives/2022/09/sdf-disavows-who-is-responsible-for-frequent-clan-fighting-in-raqqa/>.
Paglione 2008
Paglione Giulia, “Individual Property Restitution: From Deng to Pinheiro – and the Challenges Ahead,” International Journal of Refugee Law 20/3, pp. 391–422.
Petkova 2020
Petkova Mariya, “Raqqa Residents Flee Amid Fear of Syrian Government Return,” al-Jazeera, 15 February.
Qasab 2021
Qasab Hussam, “حملة قسد للتجنيد الإجباري في الرقة تهدد بعدم استقرار ونزوح جديد,” Syria Direct, 16 March, <https://syriadirect.org/حملة-قسد-للتجنيد-الإجباري-في-الرقة-ته/?lang=ar>.
REACH 2019
REACH, Area-Based Assessment of Ar-Raqqa City: Situation Overview, REACH Initiative, <https://page.hn/sz5g7i>.
Sharp 2016
Sharp Deen, “Urbicide and the Arrangement of Violence in Syria,” in D. Sharp and C. Panetta (eds.), Beyond the Square: Urbanism and the Arab Uprisings, New York, Terreform (Urban Research), pp. 118–141.
Sly & Martins 2020
Sly Liz and Martins Alice, “The Former ‘Califate Capital’ is Haunted by Fears of an ISIS Comeback,” Washington Post, 22 May, <https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/world/2020/05/22/former-caliphate-capital-is-haunted-by-fears-an-isis-comeback/>.
SOHR 2019
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, “With the Support of International Coalition Aircraft, the Syrian Democratic Forces Arrest an Oil Investor from the SDF on Charges of ‘Dealing with the Regime’” (in Arabic), <https://www.syriahr.com/>.
Tabler 2017
Tabler Andrew J., Eyeing Raqqa. A Tale of Four Tribes, Washington Institute, <http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/eyeing-raqqa-a-tale-of-four-tribes>.
Tamimi 2015
Tamimi (al-) Ayman J., “Liwa Thuwar ar-Raqqa: History, Analysis and Interview,” Middle East Forum, 14 September, <https://www.meforum.org/5596/liwa-thuwar-raqqa>.
Van Wilgenburg 2020
Van Wilgenburg Wladimir, “Struggle Against ISIS and the Integration of Arab Territories in the Autonomous Administration,” in T. Schmidinger (ed.), The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria: Between A Rock and a Hard Place, London, Transnational Press London, pp. 97–115.
Vignal 2021
Vignal Leïla, War-Torn. The Unmaking of Syria (2011-2021), London, Hurst Publishers.
Wight 2021
Wight Emily, “Four Years After the Battle, Al Raqqa Children are Living Among the Ruins”, Save the Children, <https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/four-years-after-battle-al-raqqa-children-are-living-among-ruins-save>.
Yacoubian 2017
Yacoubian Mona, Governance Challenges in Raqqa After the Islamic State, United States Institute of Peace, Special Report 414, <https://www.usip.org/publications/2017/10/governance-challenges-raqqa-after-islamic-state>.
Yahya 2018
Yahya Maha, “The Politics of Dispossession,” Diwan, Carnegie Middle East Center, Beirut.
Yazigi 2018
Yazigi Sana, Chroniques de la révolte syrienne. Des lieux et des hommes 2011-2015, Beirut, Presses de l’Ifpo.
Notes de bas de page
1<https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/04/syria-unprecedented-investigation-reveals-us-led-coalition-killed-more-than-1600-civilians-in-raqqa-death-trap/>.
2According to the National Population and Housing Census 2004, the population of Raqqa was underestimated at a low 220,500 inhabitants, not including the suburbs. With an average annual growth rate of 2.3% according to the World Bank, this would give a total of 258,500 in 2011. But I suggest including the internal migrations due to the 2007–2008 drought, which would then add up to 370,000 inhabitants. Statistics produced by the Central Bureau of Statistics in 2011 gave a total population for the Raqqa governorate of 921,000 persons.
3Kurdish term to designate administrators trained in SDF academies (Haenni & Quesnay 2020, p. 9).
4<https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/north-africa-west-asia/journalism-raqqa-iv-war-reconstruction-and-power-struggles/>.
5Raqqa Liberation Front was directed by the Harakat Aḥrar al-Shām al-Islāmiyya (Free Movement of Free Men of Islamic Syria), a jihadist group that limits its ambitions to Syria, and the Jabhat al-Nosra, a group, also jihadist, that has pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda. They came mainly from East Aleppo, and had support from within the city (Glasman 2013).
6Ṣawt al-Rafiqa, nos 15 and 16, October and November 1998 in Ababsa 2009a.
7Urfa is located 140km north of Raqqa, and used to administer Raqqa in Ottoman times.
8Messenger conversation, January 2020.
10Created in 2014, active until 2018. Interview with a Raqqa Post journalist, Paris, February 2022.
11In November 2011, he had received 150,000 euros in cash to make the city secure, as President Bashar al-Assad was coming to Raqqa to celebrate the Eid al-Adha. Other tribal chiefs received a similar amount: MP Abdel-Mohsen Anwar Rakan al-Sawʿan, sheikh of the Sabkha tribe; Mohammed Ismail al-Berri, sheikh of the al-Bou Khamis tribe; and sheikh Khalil Ibrahim al-Kachcheh, of the al-Majadmeh tribe (Leverrier 2011).
13<http://sn4hr.org/sites/news/2020/06/22/sdf-arrested-raqqa-civil-council-employee-raqqa-city-june-20/>.
14“Trump freezes $200 million in aid promised to Syria’’, ABC News, 31st March 2019.
15Syrian Network for Human Rights, December 2017, Ridding Raqqa of ISIS Costed Extraordinarily Too Much in Lives and Resources. <http://sn4hr.org/blog/2017/12/14/49488/>.
16<https://page.hn/oytv7d>. Amnesty International launched the Strike Trackers participative project to document 12,781 damaged buildings in Raqqa province, of which 3,326 were entirely destroyed, 3,962 were severely damaged, and 5,493 were partially destroyed (Amnesty International 2018, Reach 2019).
17Skype Interview with a Raqqawi journalist, in Urfa, September 2019.
19North Press Agency, “Several neighbourhoods suffer from electricity absence in Raqqa”, 12-12-2020. <https://npasyria.com/en/51146/>.
20Skype Interview with a Raqqawi journalist in Urfa, September 2019.
22<https://english.enabbaladi.net/archives/2020/12/students-in-raqqa-schools-confused-by-three-different-curricula/>.
23OCHA give estimates of the number of returnees to Raqqa: there were 161,000 in 2018, 11,800 in 2019, 6,700 in 2020 and 1,800 during the six first months of 2021. In July 2018, there were already 30,000 families in the city (OCHA 2018).
26Part of this section was presented at a seminar in Tokyo, at Sophia University, on 19th May 2023.
27For instance, a Raqqawi returnee, Ayham Jarady, came back to his apartment in Masaken al-Houd in Raqqa in January 2019, to find that it had been given to a Kurd family from ‘Afrin. He complained to the RCC who refused to give him back his house but instead offered him another one. He refused and rented one in Raqqa, until he had no financial choice but to accept the other house, belonging to a family that had emigrated to Germany. But before occupying it, he contacted them to ask for permission: this is a case of “cumulated confiscation” (Hammoud 2020).
30<https://syriadirect.org/news/leading-raqqa-official-dies-amidst-string-of-assassinations-targeting-members-of-northern-syria%E2%80%99s-kurdish-led-government/>.
34Central Bureau of Statistics, 2013, Wheat production and area by governorate for the season 2011-2012, table 1.
37Rojava (west in Kurd) designates Syrian Kurdistan. The SDF created this administrative designation, and subdivided it into three cantons and Jazīra.
38The assassination of two young boys in Raqqa during the summer of 2020 shocked the inhabitants, as the police said that they were suicides.
39Hussam al-Omar, 2021, “Conscription by SDF Agonizing Raqqa Residents”, Enab Baladi, <https://www.raqqa-sl.com/en/?p=2757>.
40SNHR, Syrian Democratic Forces Have Arrested/ Detained at Least 61 Teachers Over Educational Curricula and for Forced Conscription Since the Beginning of 2021. Persecution of Nearly 550 Teachers Arbitrarily Dismissed from Their Jobs for Refusing Forced Conscription in the Governorates of Raqqa, Dayr al-Zūr and al-Ḥasaka, 19 February 2021, <https://sn4hr.org/wp-content/pdf/english/Syrian_Democratic_Forces_Have_Arrested_Detained_at_Least_61_Teachers_Over_Educational_Curricula_en.pdf>.
41Idem.
42A nine-day attack on al-Ḥasaka jail was carried out by IS, which ended in a bloodbath and the escape of dozens of jihadists, <https://page.hn/k3jws7>.
43“In January 2019, Damascus announced that its officials had met with tribes in the Ithriyah region (125km south of Raqqa city), with hundreds of regime-supporting tribal figures in attendance”; al-Musarea 2021, and “Ali Mamlouk calls on the Jazīra tribes to defect from SDF”, Enab Baladi, 6 December 2019. In ICG 2021.
Auteur
-
Myriam Ababsa
Ifpo
myriam.ababsa@gmail.com
Geographer and urban planner, associate researcher at the Institut français du Proche-Orient (Ifpo Amman), the Géographie-Cités laboratory, and the CAREP Paris. A graduate of the École normale supérieure Fontenay-Saint Cloud, she obtained her PhD in 2004 from the University of Tours (Raqqa, territoires et pratiques sociales d’une ville syrienne, Ifpo, 2009). Myriam Ababsa is the author of Amman, de pierre et de paix (Autrement, 2007). Together with Rami Daher, she co-edited Villes, pratiques urbaines et construction nationale en Jordanie (Ifpo, 2011); with Éric Denis and Baudouin Dupret, Popular Housing and Urban Land Tenure in the Middle East (American University in Cairo Press, 2012); and the Atlas of Jordan: History, Territories and Society (Ifpo, 2013). Her most recent book, co-authored with Norig Neveu and Falestin Naïli, is: Amman Social History through Photography (Ifpo, 2025). She is a member of the scientific council of Mondes Arabes (CNRS, Collège de France) since 2022.
Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Licence OpenEdition Books. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
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