Although the city was besieged by rebels from the Free Syrian Army, as well as from Islamist groups like the Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, back then it was a safe haven compared with embattled cities like Aleppo, Homs and Deir Ezzor. Raqqa was soon crowded with refugees. But in 2013, as the rebel groups closed in and the Syrian Air Force of President Bashar al-Assad started bombing the city, those who could afford to started to leave.
For me, Raqqa was my hometown and leaving was out of the question. Even under bombardment, people managed to keep their businesses running. I worked two jobs.
In January 2014, the Nusra Front and other rebel groups started a campaign to drive the Islamic State out of Syria. But after a two-week battle, the Islamic State captured Raqqa — a strategic city for the jihadist group, which originated in Iraq.
By then, most government operations were closed. Those lucky enough to work in departments that were still functioning, like electricity and health, risked their lives to pick up their salaries, traveling nearly 100 miles to a government-held part of Deir Ezzor. Others lost their livelihood.
Some traders grew relatively rich, as did workers in Raqqa’s primitive oil refineries. But many people turned to subsistence farming to support their families, even educated people like Abdulrahman, an engineer and family friend.
Abdulrahman didn’t invite the Islamic State to his town. He used to work for the Department of Finance, had his own apartment and a nice car. Now he makes a meager living growing vegetables, as his father once did.
Few people are like Abdulrahman, preferring to stay no matter what. The majority are stuck, like Saeed, in the “capital” of the Islamic State — which has also become, of course, the No. 1 target for airstrikes by the American-led coalition.
Many Raqqa residents face an additional problem: keeping their sons from being sucked into the fighting. I’ve seen first hand that for Raqqa’s teenagers, the Islamic State’s ideology has zero appeal. What they want is its money and its guns.
Not counting bonuses, a fighter starts out earning about $200 a month — more than a family needs to live (a civilian like Saeed struggles to make $150). He gets additional money for wives, children, slaves and provisions, raising his potential monthly income to more than $500. If he applies for a house, the Islamic State will hand him the keys within two months.
These young men want to be listened to when they speak, and feared. These motives — “respect,” cash and guns — are turning ordinary young people into murderers.
There were rumors last year that the Islamic State was going to start drafting Raqqans. They soon came true. Near the front line where the Islamic State is fighting the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or Y.P.G., the jihadists have already conscripted one man from every family. They claim it’s so they can “defend their villages.”
In Raqqa, news that the Y.P.G. and its Free Syrian Army allies are preparing for an assault on the city is causing trepidation. It would be the third battle for Raqqa in two years. And the more the Islamic State is pushed out of other territories and back toward Raqqa, the more it leans on the locals here. In addition to conscription, the Islamists are confiscating houses and levying new taxes.
Meanwhile, the aerial bombardment continues practically every night. When the American-led coalition airstrikes targeted the Islamic State’s headquarters for the first time, in 2014, people were excited. Now it’s different. Every so often, we hear that a drone strike has killed an Islamic State commander, but there’s no sign that the group has been significantly weakened.
The Islamic State is still here, and the bombs just bring fear and misery to civilians. Indeed, the very people being victimized by the Islamic State are also being bombed by its enemies.
No one believes aerial bombing alone can bring a solution. Not Russian airstrikes, anyway. The Russians, just like the Assad forces, do not distinguish between civilians and jihadist fighters.
Until the Islamic State is rooted out, the local community will remain tied to the jihadist group in one way or another, because it is the power on the ground. Raqqa is seen by many as the Islamic State’s stronghold and a recruiting base. But those people living under Islamic State rule are the ones suffering the most from its brutality.
The diversity of Syrian society has been destroyed, and minorities are persecuted. Virtually every day, people are whipped or executed in the streets, accused of violating Shariah law or of being spies. Earlier this month, a local journalist named Ruqia Hassan, who had disappeared several months earlier, was confirmed dead, killed by Islamic State militants who accused her of spying for the F.S.A.
The Islamic State gives people one choice: Escape your poverty by fighting for us. The world has to offer people living under the Islamic State better choices. Stop the Assad government from bombing markets and bridges, and its Russian allies from bombing civilian infrastructure, as happened recently when a Russian airstrike reportedly hit a water main, cutting off water for the entire city.
Most of all, don’t dismiss as terrorists the citizens of occupied cities just because they were too poor to leave when the Islamic State took over. The people under this occupation present the best hope for destroying the jihadists. Without their support, the Islamic State can hardly be defeated.
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Marwan Hisham is the pen name of a writer and journalist based in Raqqa, Syria.