Raqqa
City in SyriaWikipedia
50
MENTIONS
29
EPISODES
25
PODCASTS
Search complete. 50 mentions across 29 episodes found for "Raqqa".
Nov 1, 2026
Roger NobleGUEST
And at the time, I remember thinking, is that the best you can do, right? Can't you come up with? And what I realized was happening was in all of the complexity, he picked out one thing that was important to pretty much everybody and was, I don't think he meant it, but a binding, go and get Mosul, right? And he told us to do it.
Roger NobleGUEST
And that just started a constant dialogue, right? Yeah, okay, but what about the Russians? Oh, do we get Mosul or do we get Raqqa? And so it starts an iterative and then you can start passing risk up.
Roger NobleGUEST
Here are your risks.
Roger NobleGUEST
Here's how you mitigate them.
speaker_0NARRATOR
Gulf states like Turkey funneled money and weapons to a growing patchwork of rebel factions.
speaker_0NARRATOR
And out of that chaos, In June 2014, ISIS declared a caliphate, stretching across Syria and Iraq, with the city of Raqqa as its capital, adding a third front to a war that already had too many.
speaker_0NARRATOR
Assad, meanwhile, kept doing what Assads do.
speaker_0NARRATOR
In August 2013, his forces launched a chemical weapons attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, killing well over 1,000 civilians in a matter of hours.
Hillary ClintonGUEST
I've got no illusions about that.
Hillary ClintonGUEST
And then continue to press into Syria to begin to take back and move on Raqqa, which is the ISIS headquarters.
Hillary ClintonGUEST
I am hopeful that the hard work that American military advisors have done will pay off and that we will see a really successful military operation.
Hillary ClintonGUEST
But we know we've got lots of work to do.
Ed CampbellHOST
You're thinking, it's January, it's fucking shit.
Ed CampbellHOST
I'm going to go to Raqqa.
Sophie GarradHOST
Why does she sound like that?
Ed CampbellHOST
Does
Donald TrumpGUEST
They understand.
Donald TrumpGUEST
Why can't they do something secretively where they go in and they knock out the leadership? Why would these people stay there? I've been reading now for weeks about Mosul, that it's the harbor of where, you know, between Raqqa and Mosul.
Donald TrumpGUEST
This is where they think the ISIS leaders are.
Donald TrumpGUEST
Why would they be safe? They're not staying there anymore.
Hillary ClintonGUEST
I would also consider arming the Kurds.
Hillary ClintonGUEST
The Kurds have been our best partners in Syria as well as Iraq.
Hillary ClintonGUEST
And I know there's a lot of concern about that in some circles, but I think they should have the equipment they need so that Kurdish and Arab fighters on the ground are the principal way that we take Raqqa after pushing ISIS out of Iraq.
Hillary ClintonGUEST
Thank you very much.
Amanda HodgeGUEST
She's only 20 now.
Amanda HodgeGUEST
But at the time, she says she was held captive in this house in Raqqa, which was the capital of the Syrian ISIS caliphate.
Amanda HodgeGUEST
She was nine, just nine years
Claire HarveyHOST
old.
Jonathan SpyerGUEST
I'm maybe one of the relatively few, relatively small number of journalists who covered both the Gaza war closely, I was five times inside Gaza in the course of the war, and also the coalition's war against ISIS closely.
Jonathan SpyerGUEST
And I was in Mosul and Raqqa, Kobani and many of the key front and Anbar province, many of the key front lines of the coalition's war against ISIS in the period 2014. until 2019.
Jonathan SpyerGUEST
So I've sort of covered both the Gaza war and the immediately preceding similar war conducted by a Western armed force against a jihadi force inside largely urban areas, the closest parallel.
Jonathan SpyerGUEST
And I would say that in most ways, tactics are almost always really the tactics are directly parallel.
speaker_0NARRATOR
Unlike medieval monarchs, these groups often use engine oil instead of water or wine.
speaker_0NARRATOR
Abu Abd al-Rakawi, a former ISIS emir in Raqqa, claimed to have witnessed extensive atrocities before his defection, including men being boiled alive in engine oil.
speaker_0NARRATOR
Abu escaped after witnessing repeated executions, and realizing ISIS did not represent true liberation or Islam.
speaker_0NARRATOR
He said, quote, The things you've seen on the internet are executions by shooting and standard punishments.
Brian ChappellHOST
That is the reality in which we live and the world around us experiences.
Brian ChappellHOST
Why would we think we wouldn't experience it so that we have Christian brothers and sisters in Raqqa, Syria right now who are in a town controlled by Al-Qaeda and as a consequence of being in that town the Christians alone are required to pay a fee in order to be protected by Al-Qaeda.
Brian ChappellHOST
Nobody else has to pay the fee.
Brian ChappellHOST
Just Christians in order to be protected.
Mike HamzyGUEST
which led to prices to go up in France and led the student riots, which we'll talk about that in detail if we have the time.
Mike HamzyGUEST
So what happened with the Houthis, they are implementing the plans of attack against the Saudi to destroy the Saudi kingdom from then and have the Shia take over Raqqa.
Mike HamzyGUEST
and kick the infants, the Americans, we have 20 in the Middle East, kick them out to the Middle East.
Mike HamzyGUEST
And so the plan is for the Iranians to take over most of Saudi Arabia and the Israeli plan to have the great Israel from Baghdad all the way to the Nile.
19 more episodes mention Raqqa.
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