In 2014, ISIS seized control of the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, and it soon became the de facto capital of the ferociously expanding Islamic State. Beginning in 2016, and building on progress made against ISIS in Iraq, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance, started advancing on Raqqa. This summer, SDF troops supported by U.S. special forces fought their way into the sprawling city, accompanied by heavy coalition airstrikes on ISIS positions, reducing much of the city to piles of rubble. Thousands of civilians remain trapped in Raqqa, some used as human shields by ISIS militants, others too sick, injured, or terrified to venture into a warzone to escape—and according to Reuters, these civilians are paying a heavy toll in the final weeks and months of the battle.
The Battle for Raqqa
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A member of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) walks through debris in the old city center on the eastern front line of Raqqa, Syria, on September 25, 2017. Syrian fighters, backed by U.S. special forces, are battling to clear the last remaining Islamic State (ISIS) fighters holed up in their crumbling stronghold of Raqqa. #
Bulent Kilic / AFP / Getty -
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Displaced Syrian children who fled the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa stand in an abandoned building where people took refuge in the town of Tabqa, about 55 kilometers (35 miles) west of the embattled city, on September 6, 2017. #
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An SDF member climbs to a rooftop as another fires a rocket-propelled grenade during clashes with ISIS jihadists near the central hospital of Raqqa on October 1, 2017. #
Bulent Kilic / AFP / Getty -
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Displaced Syrians from Deir Ezzor head to refugee camps on the outskirts of Raqqa on September 24, 2017, as Syrian fighters backed by U.S. special forces are battling to clear the last remaining ISIS jihadists holed up in their crumbling stronghold. #
Bulent Kilic / AFP / Getty -
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A wall marred by bullet holes in the school in Hazema, North Raqqa, Syria, photographed on August 21, 2017, shortly after the school re-opened. The ultra-hardline Islamic State closed this school and many others in northern Syria after it seized control of the region in 2014, three years into the country’s civil war. Instead it taught children extremist thought in mosques. #
Zohra Bensemra / Reuters -
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A man who claimed to be wounded by an airstrike at the front line during fighting between the SDF and ISIS in Raqqa speaks to reporters at a mosque in Raqqa, Syria, on October 12, 2017. #
Erik de Castro / Reuters -
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