Raqqa falls! ISIS capital liberated by Syrian rebels.

An SDF fighter waves her flag in Raqqa. BBC/AFP.

Raqqa, ISIS's de facto capital in Syria, has been liberated according to US backed rebels on the ground. BBC. The Syrian Democratic Force has captured the last ISIS strongholds in the city, which were the hospital and the stadium. Major combat operations are over but work clearing out landmines and booby traps, along with any stray ISIS fighters, will continue. Raqqa fell to ISIS in 2014 and was the first provincial capital captured by the terror group. Since then it has served as ISIS's capital for it's Caliphate.

My Comment:
This is a historic and massive victory against ISIS and very likely spells the end of the idea that ISIS is a state. They have lost so much in the past year or so. They lost almost all of their holdings in Iraq, including their grandest prize in the city of Mosul. Now they have lost their capital itself. This is incredible news and this post is one that I have been looking forward to for years now.

There are a lot of people that can take credit for this defeat. Most obviously, the fighters in the Syrian Democratic Force deserve the lion's share. They were the ones that took the fight to ISIS and they are the ones that not only liberated the city but also the region. Without them Raqqa would still stand under ISIS control today. This is a huge victory for them and they deserve praise.

The United States and our allies deserve some of the credit as well. We obviously supported the fight against ISIS and our troops put their lives on the line training and fighting with the SDF. Four of our service members have died there while others have been wounded. Without our help the SDF might have won but it would have taken much longer and came at a much higher price.

I think President Trump, and to a lesser extent, President Obama, deserve some credit too. Though Obama's record on Syria is poor at best, he did at least help to train and fund the Kurds and other rebels that did the fighting. President Trump was the game changer though. His new strategy of bombing the hell out of ISIS while at the same time adopting a surround and destroy strategy against ISIS is a huge reason why ISIS was never able to recover. ISIS would have been defeated eventually anyways but without Trump's plan it would have taken much longer and many more people, especially civilians, would have died.   

As loath as I am to admit it, Turkey changed the course of the war as well when they joined the fight against ISIS after long being a de facto ally. Once Turkey closed the border and cleared out the northern reaches of Syrian territory of ISIS fighters, ISIS was doomed. They were cut off from their supplies of new recruits and lost one of their main sources of income from selling oil in Turkey. The Turks did this for selfish reasons as their intervention had as much to do with punishing the Kurds as it did to do with retaliating against ISIS terror attacks, but we have to admit that finally coming down on ISIS helped end the war much quicker.

ISIS is essentially done as a state and no longer have a real claim to being the Caliphate. They still control quite a bit of territory but it is a rump state compared to their height. The only major city they have major forces left in is Dier Ez Zor, and that city is under siege by the Syrian government and their Russian allies with the SDF closing in fast as well.  They control a series of small towns and cities on the Euphrates river but none of them are major and all of them are now under pressure. They still have holdings in both Syria and Iraq but they are rapidly losing control and will shortly lose those holdings as well. 

I am now predicting that many ISIS fighters will go underground to continue the war as a guerrilla and terrorist army. I don't see them openly controlling areas like they did before but they will  conduct raids and terrorist attacks. They still have quite a few fighters and some will be missed by security forces in the aftermath of the battles. ISIS won't just lay down and give up just because they lost their capital. They will continue to fight even if the strategy is less about taking and holding territory and more about causing chaos.

We also have to realize that ISIS is a global phenomenon that won't simply go away because ISIS has largely been defeated on the battlefield. Even if every "official" ISIS member in the world dropped dead tomorrow there would still be thousands of radicals willing to take up the cause of Jihad. These people will remember that even though ISIS lost their capital they were still able to accomplish some, quite frankly, unbelievable things. The Caliphate may die but those who support it won't just go away. They will continue to kill in the name of the Caliphate even as the Caliphate collapses.

And even though ISIS has been routed in Syria and Iraq, they still have cells and holdouts throughout the world. There is evidence they are beginning to regroup in Libya and they have never really been defeated in Egypt. They are also infesting Yemen, Afghanistan and various places in Africa. Most alarmingly, they have popped up in The Philippines. The battle of Marawi City, which also came to a close today if we are to believe Rodrigo Duterte, took everyone by surprise. ISIS may have had their main power base broken but they are not defeated.

I am also worried about where things go from here. Until now a fragile kind of peace has reigned in both Syria and Iraq. Well, peace is probably the wrong word for it, but many of the diverse factions in Syria were working together against ISIS or even just staying out of each others way. That may change and change quickly now that ISIS is on the run. My hope is, at the very least, America and Russia can continue keep out of each others way.

Still, the cracks are already appearing in Iraq. I wrote yesterday that the Kurds and the Iraqi government got into a few skirmishes over Kirkuk. That kind of thing could happen in Syria. The state is already filled with factions that hate each other and without the common threat of ISIS it could devolve into the massive disaster that it was for years. ISIS losing Raqqa won't bring peace to Syria. Not by a long shot.

I also have to wonder how much of a role the United States should continue to play in Syria. Obviously ISIS still has a presence there and as long as that is true we should have a presence there. But what happens when ISIS loses it's last strongholds? Right now we are kind of running out of things to bomb and what little is left risks possible conflict with the Syrians and Russians.

My instinct is to say that we should just leave but the major question then is what is to be done with the other evil army of Jihadi madmen running amok in Syria? I am, of course, talking about al-Nusra. Though they are not as bad as ISIS, they are still evil men that could very well expand into another global terrorist organization. The Syrian government and their Russian allies should be able to handle them but if they can't than perhaps our mission in Syria is not over yet...