RAQQA: At a house in Syria’s Raqqa, women and men danced together in celebration at a wedding that would have been unimaginable just months ago, when the militant Islamic State group ruled the city.

Residents said that Ahmad and Heba’s wedding, held on Friday in Raqqa’s western neighbourhood of Jazra, was the first in the city since US-backed forces seized it on Oct 17.

The dancers hopped and swayed to-and-fro as children ran around. Elders looked on approvingly from seats and benches on the edge of the makeshift dance floor.

Almost everything in the scene would have been impossible during the three years of brutal IS rule.

The group banned music and dancing, imposed a strict dress code, prevented women from wearing make-up, and forcefully prohibited the mixing of men and women.

But in Jazra, music mingled with the sound of generators providing the only electricity in the ravaged district, which like much of the city was heavily damaged during more than four months of fighting.

Jazra was one of the first districts of Raqqa to be captured by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters that broke into the city in June.

The groom’s family, unlike many others who fled Raqqa during the fighting, were able to return to their neighbourhood and celebrate.

“We’re very happy, it’s the first wedding since the jihadists left,” Ahmed’s father Uthman Ibrahim said as he received guests.

“Before IS, there was dabke, songs and the traditional rituals of the region at our marriages, but IS banned everything, there was not a single celebration,” the man in his fifties said.

Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2017