Thursday’s attack, though deadly, signifies a minor act of retaliation amid a larger struggle for ISIS to regain its footing in Raqqa, where it has maintained control since 2014. According to Rami Abdurrahman, the head of the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, militants staged the attack by riding in on motorcycles and then retreating safely to their base. Dozens of people—both SDF fighters and civilians—were kidnapped and killed, he said. Still, many analysts and U.S. officials claim that ISIS has been forced into a state of panic and disarray.

In recent months, U.S.-backed forces in Raqqa have ramped up airstrikes against ISIS militants. From June 6 to June 13, the U.S. coalition conducted 187 airstrikes in the region, The Military Times reports. On Tuesday, the U.S. Central Command reported that coalition forces had conducted another 24 strikes that day, destroying 14 militant units. This advancement has been made possible, in part, by the Trump administration’s decision to arm and train members of the SDF’s primary Kurdish militia, the People’s Protection Units (YPG).

With this strong military presence, however, comes a rise in civilian casualties and internationally displaced persons. Because the coalition has adopted a scorched earth policy, nearly all of Raqqa’s important buildings have been destroyed and around 160,000 civilians have been forced to flee their homes. Last month, UN war-crimes investigators described a “staggering loss of civilian life” in the city, where at least 300 people have been killed since March. In all likelihood, this is a conservative estimate: The U.K.-based monitor Airwars claims that more than 600 civilians have been killed by coalition strikes alone.

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