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Varyan Khan: [Islamic State] photo reports from the last couple of days have all been life-is-normal—going to the laundromat, cleaning the streets, building a bridge. If they're feeling the effects of airstrikes, they're doing their best to distract us by showing us the good life, as they always love to do.These airstrikes would probably cripple someplace like New York. If we had a couple of bridges taken out in one day, we'd be devastated. It'd take us months to get that back together. Not the Islamic State. It's like business as usual… just build up a new bridge. In areas that they control heavily like Raqqa and Mosul, they really are that efficient. They have plenty of backhoes and forklifts that they can use to rebuild things very quickly.If [airstrikes] pound the shit out of [Raqqa], it's not going to get [the French] what they want. They're going to swing a lot of people toward ISIS, like the barrel bombs of [Syrian President Bashar al-]Assad. That swung a lot of people toward ISIS. ISIS loves to show dead babies.Do you think we're holding back from doing the serious damage that would make the airstrikes deeply felt because we're trying to avoid human casualties?
I think that we have been cognizant about doing too much damage to the nation that they could never bounce back from. And if they take out too many civilians, it's going to get out. Think about Pakistan, how we tried with drone strikes to not make such a big deal about the collateral damage [and it didn't work]. That's always going to be your problem with Raqqa.
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No.Yet media accounts and activists say the airstrikes are leading people to flee; Raqqa Is Being Silently Slaughtered [an activist group providing information to the Western media] says IS fighters are taking cover, running scared. Do you not buy that? If so, why?
I saw a tiny couple of mentions about [people fleeing] on Twitter, but they were all rumors.Raqqa Is Being Silently Slaughtered has always had an agenda. I'm not slamming on them. They do good work, and in many cases it's the only voice we have coming out of Raqqa that's not Islamic State. But they've suffered their own losses. They have just cause to make the Islamic State seem less than it is and the Islamic State has just cause to seem bigger than they are.[IS fighters] might actually be running. Hell, if I was just a civilian fighter and I hadn't been paid in a while and airstrikes were coming I'd [take off] my uniform and run. Doesn't mean I'm not going to come back and fight.Until we see photo reports about people leaving [we have to doubt those claims]. But honestly, where do they have to go? Think about the refugee crisis here. If you haven't left Syria already, you're just migrating within the country at this point. That happened a lot before the big mass migration that we're seeing now—people just shifted locations as one area became a little safer than others. That could still be happening, but I still think they don't have many places to go.
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No. Unless you start seeing things from satellite imagery, like mass migrations out of there—which I don't think you're going to see. The only other option is anecdotal evidence.Telegram is the most reliable source of getting Islamic State information today. [ Telegram is currently trying to shut down Islamic State accounts on its site. — Ed.] You used to see a lot of selfie and grainy footage of […] destruction on their end to prove that they were battle-hardened. But now everything's scripted. [Still,] I think monitoring Telegram and what the Islamic State's putting out—and what it's not—is always most critical in understanding where they're trying to direct your attention. Last week after [they lost] Sinjar, you saw the Islamic State trying really hard to push your attention out of al-Sham, toward Beirut and Paris.And we're not seeing the kind of diversion you'd expect if things in Raqqa were rough?
Unless you think a [Raqqa] laundromat is distracting.Basically, it's probably horrible living in a city at war, but you don't think the airstrikes are doing much to change the lived reality in Raqqa, which is mitigating damage well?
Yeah, bouncing back easy.Follow Mark on Twitter.