RAQQA — US-backed forces are closing in on Daesh (the so-called IS) in Raqqa, but local Syrians who have escaped the battlefield are worried about what comes after the fight.
Dozens of them have volunteered to help rebuild the town once the militants have been defeated. The aim of organization they have joined, the Raqqa Civil Council (RCC) is to restore order and keep the peace in a place where further violence could fuel the rise of a new set of extremists with global ambitions.
The RCC was established in April by Kurdish and Arab allies of the US-led coalition that began attacking Raqqa this month, to replace militant rule in a part of Syria long beyond President Bashar Al-Assad’s control.
The campaign against Daesh has accelerated since President Donald Trump took office in January with the militants now facing defeat in both Raqqa and Mosul in Iraq.
But the RCC says post-conflict planning in Raqqa has not kept pace. RCC volunteers say they have told the coalition it will take 5.3 billion Syrian lira (about $10 million) a year to restore power and water supplies, roads and schools and that they have nothing but small private donations so far.
The dangers of the failure to rebuild after conflict were clear in Iraq following the 2003 US-led invasion. The post-conflict chaos opened the door to an insurgency that devastated the country and fueled the rise of Daesh.
Mosul and Raqqa are both key centers of the caliphate the group proclaimed in 2014, but Raqqa is its operational headquarters, from where it plotted many of the deadly attacks that have targeted civilians around the world.
A US official said Washington stood ready to fund the RCC, “provided they prove themselves inclusive and representative of the communities they govern”.
The RCC is a diverse team co-led by Arab tribal leader Sheikh Mahmoud Shawakh Al-Bursan, who wears tribal robes, and Kurdish civil engineer Leila Mustafa, dressed in a green shirt and jeans.
Based in the village of Ain Issa, 50 km (30 miles) north of Raqqa, it has the support of the Syrian Democratic Forces, US-backed Kurdish and Arab militia fighting Daesh.
“This is a historic step for Raqqa,” Mustafa said, referring to the dozens of technocrats and tribal leaders at its headquarters, a former government water department building, preparing to govern Raqqa until free elections can be held. “But there is destroyed infrastructure which must be rebuilt,” she said. “Schools must be opened. Water and power stations need funding.”
The lack of funding has left the council, whose 70 members include teachers, doctors, engineers and lawyers, with few resources to appease frustrated, displaced Raqqa residents looking for quick solutions when they return to the city.
Revenge killings of anyone associated with Daesh are likely, and such violence could fuel another extremist militant movement, just as revenge killings of Al-Qaeda-linked tribes in Iraq helped Daesh spread its rule there from Raqqa.
Abdul Aziz al-Amir, one of 20 representatives of local tribes on the council, is optimistic they can foster social cohesion in the city, where rows of houses and shops have been pulverized by coalition airstrikes and Daesh bombs.
“People with disputes always came to us,” said Amir, wearing a checkered headdress and flowing robe. “We have the confidence of the people. We can help bring stability.”
Syria’s northern neighbor Turkey disagrees, arguing that a Raqqa council allied to Kurdish militia will expand the power of Syria’s Kurds, effective fighters during the six-year-old conflict who have established self-rule in Syria’s north.
Turkey has battled a three-decade old insurgency by Kurdish PKK fighters in its south east and says Syrian Kurdish militia are an extension of the outlawed PKK. It views their ascendancy as a security threat.
The main Syrian Kurdish groups say their goal is only autonomy in a future democratic and federal Syria. The council says some 80 percent of its members are Arabs, with two Arabs and a Kurd as its deputy leaders.
European countries share Turkish and US concerns that the RCC acts independently from the Kurdish militia in Raqqa, an overwhelmingly Arab city, but are very worried about post-conflict limbo given the number of attacks on their soil.
“For the moment the US is telling us, ‘we’re carrying out our war so will see afterwards,” a European diplomat said. — Reuters
