Raqqa city, which is completely under the control of the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), has witnessed days of disturbance and tension amid news of cooperation between one of the biggest tribes in the region and many military groups and battalions to attack ISIS centers and evict them from the city.
“The people of Raqqa are fed up with ISIS and its acts in the city and against its people. Every day we wake to the news that one more of our people has been slaughtered, had their hands cut off and others lashed in public squares without providing any evidence for their sentences, which are usually made for personal benefit,”, a sheikh from al-Brij tribe reported to Zaman al-Wasl.
The sheikh said that Raqqa tribes are somehow responsible for enabling ISIS to control the city and that now it is their responsibility to throw them out. He revealed that his tribe has cooperated with many fighting battalions to start the “second revolution” of Raqqa, against the regime which has occupied their city under Islamic cover. He insisted on the importance of support by other people in the city to help rebels in their battle against injustice and strangers.
Activists from Raqqa have initiated a campaign called “Raqqa is being silently slaughtered” to draw attention to crimes of ISIS in the city, aiming to garner efforts to find a revolutionary body able to return the city to the right track.
Abu Ibrahim al-Raqqawi, an activist and one of the campaign’s founders, likened what is happening in Raqqa these day to a play, where suppressing forces disguised in revolutionary and Islamic garb are practicing ugly actions. He called to work together to reveal what those forces do and their real faces, along with those controllingthings behind the scenes.
“Actions were not limited to the virtual world," he said,"it has started on ground as well, with activists writing captions on walls in the city and countryside against ISIS."
"A demonstration was organized in al-Mansour Street, which was followed by the arrest of 17 activists by ISIS,” Raqqawi added.
Zaman al-Wasl was the first to highlight the conflict between ISIS and the al-Brij tribe, when many people from the tribe, who previously joined ISIS, announced their defection from the State, after a disagreement between them following the arrest of a woman from the tribe because she did not were the hijab.
Translated and edited by the Syrian Observer
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