Fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) walk down a street in Raqa past destroyed vehicles and heavily damaged buildings on October 20, 2017, after a Kurdish-led force expelled Islamic State (IS) group fighters from the northern Syrian city, formerly their "capital".
SDF fighters flushed jihadist holdouts from Raqa's main hospital and municipal stadium, wrapping up a more than four-month offensive against what used to be the inner sanctum of IS's self-proclaimed "caliphate", which for three years saw some of the group's worst abuses and grew into a centre for both its potent propaganda machine and its unprecedented experiment in jihadist statehood. / AFP PHOTO / BULENT KILIC        (Photo credit should read BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images)