AIN ISSA, SYRIA // ISIL militants are fleeing Raqqa ahead of an expected US-backed assault, according to residents who said they took advantage of the reduced militant presence to also leave the city.
Four hundred families from Raqaa arrived last week at a camp for displaced people in Ain Issa, in territory that is controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces.
The US-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias launched a campaign to retake Raqqa in November and are now fighting ISIL at Tabqa dam, site of Syria’s biggest dam about 55 kilometres upstream on the Euphrates river.
Raqqa residents said fears over the expected assault had been reaching fever pitch and rumours that the Tabqa dam would collapse and flood the city had sparked further panic.
“The hisbah [religious police] announced over megaphones, ‘the land of Muslims will be flooded, the Tabqa dam has collapsed,’” said Mohammad Mahmoud, 38.
“It’s hell there. Fear rules over everything,” he said as he smoked a cigarette, a vice ISIL banned when they captured Raqqa in 2014.
Mr Mahmoud, his brother and both their families paid $1,000 (Dh3,670) to a smuggler and fled Raqqa last week.
“I was so afraid, I couldn’t think straight,” he said, his face lined with exhaustion, his clothes covered in dust.
He hovered protectively around his elderly mother in a wheelchair, its wheels caked in mud after their 14-hour trek out of Raqqa.
The camp in Ain Issa where he and his family have found shelter is home to several thousand Syrians displaced by war. Children walked between tents emblazoned with the logo of the UN refugee agency, clutching sandwiches and water bottles. Inside tents, men waited for their turn to have the beards ISIL ordered them to grow shaved off. At the entrance to the camp, Kurdish police units, known as Asayesh, searched new arrivals.
“ISIL is finished now. Most of its fighters fled to Mayadeen or Albu Kamal,” Mr Mahmoud said. The two towns are in the oil-rich eastern province of Deir Ezzor, most of which is under ISIL control.
Ahmad, a Raqqa resident in his fifties, said residents seized the opportunity to flee when they saw ISIL fighters leave.
“We were no longer afraid to flee Raqqa like before, because ISIL fighters were less and less visible,” he said, his six children perched atop suitcases packed with their belongings.
Ahmad said the militants had abandoned most of their checkpoints, built tunnels around the city and reinforced their positions with sandbags.
He said the journey to Ain Issa was traumatic for his family.
“We were so terribly afraid of the air strikes, that the coalition might think we are ISIL fighters,” he said.
“Daesh is afraid of the assault on Raqqa,” said a 25-year-old man who asked to use the pseudonym of Zuhair.
“Many of their fighters fled with their families on motorbikes and there are fewer and fewer checkpoints,” he said.
But even as the extremists left Raqqa, “they warned residents ‘not to go to the infidels’,” said Zuhair, who still has relatives trapped in the city of 300,000 residents.
“I don’t know what happened to them,” he said.
Zuhair said he was jailed and lashed by extremists several times for selling tobacco in defiance of an ISIL ban.
“But if I hadn’t taken the risk, I couldn’t have fed my family,” he said, crouched near his year-old daughter Qamar.
Jilal Al Ayyaf, who runs the camp in Ain Issa, said he was bracing for an influx of displaced people as the SDF press their advance.
“The more the noose tightens [around ISIL], the more displaced people we’ll get,” he said.
* Agence France-Presse
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
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Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
The Bio
Favourite vegetable: “I really like the taste of the beetroot, the potatoes and the eggplant we are producing.”
Holiday destination: “I like Paris very much, it’s a city very close to my heart.”
Book: “Das Kapital, by Karl Marx. I am not a communist, but there are a lot of lessons for the capitalist system, if you let it get out of control, and humanity.”
Musician: “I like very much Fairuz, the Lebanese singer, and the other is Umm Kulthum. Fairuz is for listening to in the morning, Umm Kulthum for the night.”
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
At Everton Appearances: 77; Goals: 17
At Manchester United Appearances: 559; Goals: 253
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years-of-age
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his/her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30-years-old and able to support the child financially
Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
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Navdeep Suri, India's Ambassador to the UAE
There has been a longstanding need from the Indian community to have a religious premises where they can practise their beliefs. Currently there is a very, very small temple in Bur Dubai and the community has outgrown this. So this will be a major temple and open to all denominations and a place should reflect India’s diversity.
It fits so well into the UAE’s own commitment to tolerance and pluralism and coming in the year of tolerance gives it that extra dimension.
What we will see on April 20 is the foundation ceremony and we expect a pretty broad cross section of the Indian community to be present, both from the UAE and abroad. The Hindu group that is building the temple will have their holiest leader attending – and we expect very senior representation from the leadership of the UAE.
When the designs were taken to the leadership, there were two clear options. There was a New Jersey model with a rectangular structure with the temple recessed inside so it was not too visible from the outside and another was the Neasden temple in London with the spires in its classical shape. And they said: look we said we wanted a temple so it should look like a temple. So this should be a classical style temple in all its glory.
It is beautifully located - 30 minutes outside of Abu Dhabi and barely 45 minutes to Dubai so it serves the needs of both communities.
This is going to be the big temple where I expect people to come from across the country at major festivals and occasions.
It is hugely important – it will take a couple of years to complete given the scale. It is going to be remarkable and will contribute something not just to the landscape in terms of visual architecture but also to the ethos. Here will be a real representation of UAE’s pluralism.
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
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Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
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A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
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