With his only hand, Hazem Kobane on Tuesday planted the yellow flag of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the notorious roundabout in Raqqa where the Islamic State group carried out gruesome beheadings.
“This is the moment we were waiting for,” the 23-year-old SDF fighter said, fixing the flag carefully with his right hand in the metal fence lining the al-Naim traffic circle.
The Islamic State group once spiked the severed heads of its opponents on the same fence, and burned books and cigarette packs in the middle, prompting residents to rename it the “Roundabout of Hell” during its three-year reign over Raqqa.
Photo: AFP
The US-backed militia on Tuesday declared full control over the city after quashing the Islamic State group from its final holdouts in Raqaa’s hospital, national stadium and at al-Naim.
With their yellow flags in hand, SDF fighters flooded the roundabout in a symbolic moment marking a victory many have been working toward for months.
Kobane lost his left hand in the 2015 fight against the Islamic State group in the northern Syrian town that shares his name and his spiky hair has turned gray from years of fighting the group.
On Tuesday, he appeared relieved and flashed a wide grin alongside dozens of fellow fighters taking pictures and joining in to the traditional dabke dance.
“This is where DAESH used to behead innocent people accused of refusing to serve the Islamic State group,” said Rojda Felat, the SDF’s commander for its Raqqa operation, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group as she waved a huge yellow flag emblazoned with her militia’s name.
Much of Raqqa — including the buildings around al-Naim — has been devastated by months of clashes and US-led air strikes.
Even far from the front line, Raqqa residents were overwhelmed with emotion when learning of al-Naim’s recapture.
“They beheaded my nephew. I was whipped four times there for not wearing my niqab properly,” said Um Abdullah, a plump 44-year-old woman who fled the Islamic State group three years ago.
As she recalled her few months under Islamic State rule, she began to cry.
“I hope all the DAESH fighters’ heads are hung on the same metal fence,” she said, her voice cracking.
Ahmad al-Hassan, an SDF member originally from Raqqa, said the roundabout’s capture conjured memories of the Islamic State group’s atrocities.
“I remember the first beheading on the western side of the roundabout. The first time they burned books, English and French novels, and cigarettes was right in the middle,” the young fighter said.
However, he also still held fond memories of al-Naim before the Islamic State group overran the city in 2014.
“It was full of restaurants, coffee shops and the best canteen with a music hall that played Fairuz so loud you could hear it all over Raqqa,” Hassan said, of the Lebanese singer known across the Middle East.
He said he still recalled buying bananas from a stand in the traffic circle and pastries from a humble shop run by a man called Abu Mohammad.
“I wish we could bring them all back, if they’re even still alive,” he said in Ain Issa, north of Raqqa.
For fighters like Hassan, the victory was bittersweet.
“Thank goodness, but to be 100 percent happy I want to go back to my heartbroken city. Raqqa is liberated, but I don’t know whether to be happy or sad,” he said.
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