French fighter jets bombed the Syrian city of Raqqa on Monday, dropping at least two dozen bombs on ISIS targets for the second day in a row. The attack on locations across Raqqa, the Islamic State group's self-proclaimed capital, come on the heels of last Friday's ISIS-inspired attack that left 129 dead, and much of the world in mourning.
Although France's targets have reportedly been precise and reserved for sites such as weapons depots and training facilities, Raqqa also holds a great deal of symbolism for ISIS. For a war increasingly being defined as a struggle between civilizations -- Paris, too, is not lacking in its symbolism -- emotions are bound to get high, with vitriol and hyperbole not far behind. The Daily Beast:
"Alain Bauer, a leading terrorism analyst and adviser to officials in Paris about counter-terror strategies, said he is among those who believe that ISIS is lashing out precisely because it is under pressure on the ground. But a war of attrition fought like the Battle of Paris this week has to be addressed at the source.
"Reacting to the remarks of the unnamed American official, Bauer told The Daily Beast, ‘If we really want to do something, we need to erase Raqqa.'"
Although Mr. Bauer later clarified his remarks as intemperate feedback not "intended for public consumption," he wouldn't be the first to wish ill will upon the ancient city. With a history ranging back to the Hellenistic period, Raqqa -- once known as Kallinikos, or Callinicum -- has survived wars, riots, and several different empires. The city was an important trading post between the Sassanid and Byzantine empires, and it has known many occupants prior to its current tenants. It was razed by a Sasanian king and built back up by a Byzantine emperor. Under the rule of Harun al-Rashid, it was the seat of the Abbasid Caliphate; later, it served as an administrative outpost in the Ottoman hinterlands.
Many have certainly tried, of course, to erase this old city along the Euphrates -- its current occupants included. Its disdain for history well documented -- see the destruction of another ancient Syrian city, Palmyra -- ISIS has moved to erase Raqqa's rich history of religious and cultural diversity, just as conquerors and caliphates did in centuries past. Analysts at Syria Comment explain:
"A pillar of this crackdown has been the Islamification of the city. Christians, who have a long history in Raqqa and who made up 10% of its population before the war, were not aggressively persecuted under [Jabhat al-Nusra]. Though churches were closed and services suspended, families were able to remain and continue their lives unmolested.
"Yet as ISIS gained control, violence against Christians increased. The group held public bible burnings, destroyed churches, and kidnapped priests, causing most of the city's Christians to flee."
ISIS has indeed used Raqqa as a laboratory for its strict, violent style of governance, and horrors akin to the ones witnessed Friday night in Paris occur on a fairly regular basis there. Foreigners from farflung parts of the globe -- many of whom aren't Syrian, or even Arab -- have descended upon the city to join ISIS's self-styled caliphate, occupying and reengineering a community that asked for neither. Public executions of dissenters have been reported by activists who bravely remain in the city, and last year it was reported that 100 militants were executed there for desertion.
Though many have tried to "erase" it, Raqqa has withstood numerous occupations and onslaughts, and the old city still stands. Its history and perseverance serve as a reminder that the war against ISIS is not a clash with a civilization, but one in defense of it.
Life in a Jihadist Capital -- New York Times
It Ain't Half Hot Here, Mum -- The Economist
One Man's Story of How ISIS Took His Hometown -- Mashable
The Province of Raqqa Under Ottoman Rule, 1535-1800: A Preliminary Study [PDF]
Around the Region
Time for Israel to reassess? In light of the ongoing turmoil across the Middle East, Al-Monitor's Ben Caspit suggests that it might be time for Israel to re-evaluate its relationship with the region's Sunni powers:
"In Israel, it is often said that recent developments on the international terrorism front prove that everything is relative. Given IS, people already miss al-Qaeda. When all of this is taken into consideration, the Shiite axis, based in Iran and including Damascus and Beirut, has for quite a while now not represented the problem, but the solution. Israel is well aware that the Europeans and Americans have long reached this conclusion. The nuclear deal with Iran confirmed that it is a major power. According to political sources in Israel, the deal effectively gave Iran a ‘license to kill.' Recent events create a situation in which this license actually offers a glimmer of hope to the free world. As of now, at least, the only ground forces fighting IS are made up of the Shiite axis: Iran, Hezbollah and what is left of the Syrian army, in collaboration with the Kurds.
"This brings us back to the old argument about the war between Sunni and Shiite Islam echoing through the corridors of the Israeli security establishment. Which is better, the Sunnis or the Shiites? That's what people are asking in Israel."
Confessional catastrophe. The Century Foundation's Thanassis Cambanis comes down hard on Lebanon's divisive rulers following last week's deadly suicide bombings in Beirut, which left more than 40 dead and scores injured. Cambanis:
"Hezbollah's short-term position remains secure, because its base supports it more strongly than ever. Over the long haul, however, it has lost any credibility as an umbrella actor with a unifying national project in addition to its own agenda. Hezbollah, despite its history galvanizing resistance to Israel, today has been reduced in the eyes of many of Lebanese and regional observers to another parochial sectarian group that works in lockstep with a foreign patron.
[...]
"But the country that set the regional standard for a functional failing state is failing more than ever before. Brand Lebanon is broken, and the country's major political parties own its misrule. That means Shia Hezbollah and its allies, and Saad Hariri's Sunni Future Movement and its allies, are responsible not just for keeping a tense and violence-wrecked country from sinking into violent strife; they're also responsible for the fact that nothing in the country works, for the failure of the government to deliver reliable electricity, water, or policing a quarter century after the end of the civil war, despite Lebanon's obvious wealth and human talent."
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