The race to Raqqa

Before the Syrian Civil War, the one historical significance of Raqqa to any Syrian was that it served as a surrogate capital for the 9th century Abbasid Caliph Harun Al Rashid. The most popular trivial fact about Raqqa was that the extravagant Al Rashid used to ride his horse from there to his political capital Baghdad under the shade of palm trees. But to our generation, and those to come, the name ‘Raqqa’ is a synonym for one the bloodiest episodes of human history. It is serving, yet again, as a surrogate capital to a Caliph. This time to Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, the leader of Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), who made Raqqa his second home after the Iraqi city of Mosul. The self-proclaimed Caliph, like his predecessor, travels across Mesopotamia with a heavy shade looming over his head... that of warplanes and cruise missiles.

Nine months after the outbreak of the Syrian uprising, Raqqa remained as calm as ever. The embattled Syrian President Bashar Al Assad visited the city in November 2011 to perform Eid prayers and meet the city’s notable tribesmen. Raqqa, however late, was sucked into the ever-growing conflict. Islamist rebels from Ahrar Al Sham and Al Qaida’s Nusra Front captured the city in March 2013, joined by a small contingent from a hitherto unknown organisation: Daesh.

Less than a year later, Daesh fighters gained full control of Raqqa in a blitz operation lasting hours. Daesh quickly began to establish its proto-state on the banks of the Euphrates. The Armenian Church became an Islamic preaching office (Dawah), and Al Baghdadi moved into the old Governor’s Mansion. But it wasn’t until after Mosul was captured and the Caliphate declared that the group moved to control the entire province of Raqqa, overrunning Syrian Army positions at the 17th division and the Tabqa airbase.

Raqqa was soon propelled to international infamy when in August, 2014, Daesh beheaded American journalist James Foley between the sand dunes just outside the city. Shortly afterwards, the United States began to bomb Raqqa, and went on to conduct thousands of air strikes in and around the city. Raqqa also became a prime target for Russian bombardment a year later, and following the November 13 attacks in Paris, French Rafale jets began pounding the city on a nightly basis.

The great powers spared no cost, from strategic bombers built for nuclear war during the Cold War, to state-of-the-art cruise missiles. The ‘existential’ threat Daesh represents is compared to that of Nazi Germany, and — ironically — Raqqa is the second city in history to be bombed by both Russians and Americans. The first was Berlin.

This air war, however, is of little effect. Daesh has no static military structures, no airports or shipyards. The group is highly mobile and has, for long, vacated the buildings so repeatedly bombed by billions of dollars worth of ordinance.

The importance of Raqqa comes not only from its nominal status as the Caliphate’s second capital, but also from its strategic position as a vital crossroad at the heart of Daesh-held territories. Raqqa province lies halfway between the last remaining Daesh-controlled border crossing with Turkey in northern Aleppo and the organisation’s heartland in Syria and Iraq.

Raqqa connects Mosul to Daesh’s strategic depth in the oil-rich Syrian Desert. Daesh already controls all the strategic cities that command the Syrian Desert: Deir Al Zor (save for a besieged government enclave), Al Sukhna, Palmyra and Al Quaryatayn. This pre-eminent position in the Syrian Desert, south of Raqqa, allows Daesh to hold the line in Iraq’s Anbar province, and to threaten Homs, Syria’s third-largest city.

The northern edge of Raqqa flanks the Kurdish-controlled Hasakah province, offering Daesh multiple bridgeheads to strike into Roj Ava (the Kurdish north-eastern Syria).

Therefore, capturing Raqqa rather than destroying it from the air is the key to defeating Daesh. All players on the Syrian battlefield are acutely aware of this fact, and they are in a virtual race to capture Raqqa.

In the north, the Syrian Army, under the cover of Russian air power, reached the Kuweires airbase, besieged by Daesh for three years. Daesh tried to halt the advance by attacking the regime’s only supply route to the north, but failed miserably. If reactivated, Kuweires will give the Syrian and Russian air forces an important forward base to support any ground offensive on Raqqa.

In central Syria, government forces, backed by troops from Iran, Iraqi Shiite militias and the Lebanese Hezbollah, are encroaching on Palmyra. If the Russian-backed forces retake Palmyra, they will gravely threaten Daesh’s position in the Syrian Desert, thus exposing Raqqa’s southern flank.

On the flip side, the Kurdish forces, now forming the backbone of the American-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, are making significant advances to the south of Hasakah with the help of American air power, armament and military advisers. The Kurds had already captured the strategic town of Ain Issa 50km north of Raqqa when they were repelling Daesh from Kobani. If successful in over-running the remaining Daesh positions in Hasakah, the entire northern flank of Raqqa will be at the SDF’s mercy.

The motley crew of rebel and Islamist factions now squeezed into an enclave north of Aleppo are confronting the Syrian Army, the Syrian Democratic Forces and Daesh all at once. Representatives of these groups, namely Ahrar Al Sham and Army of Islam, attended the Riyadh Conference aimed at uniting a wide range of Syrian opposition groups.

Even though the conference condemned terrorism (naming Daesh and omitting Al Nusra Front), the Islamist factions lobbied against Kurdish participation and succeeded in dropping any reference to secularism in the final communique, thus precluding any serious international support for their kampf against Daesh.

For centuries, the Euphrates served as the dividing line between the world’s greatest empires: Rome and Persia. Today, the Euphrates, with Raqqa at its heart, is destined to divide once more the spheres of influence of two great powers: Russia and the United States.

He whose allies win the race to Raqqa will place the first nail in Daesh’s coffin, and gain a commanding position on the Syrian battlefield, and therefore in shaping the future of Syria... and beyond.

Fadi Esber is a research associate at The Damascus History Foundation, an online project aimed at collecting and protecting the endangered archives of the Syrian capital. He is a former Middle East intern at the Carter Center’s conflict resolution programme in Atlanta. He holds an MSc in History of International Relations from the London School of Economics. The Middle East Journal will publish his master’s thesis ‘The Untied States and the Lebanese Missile Crisis’ in 2016. His research interests include Syrian politics, Political Islam and US policy in the Middle East.

Fadi Esber is the editor of Under The Black Flag: At the frontier of the new Jihad.