Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing series on the Islamic State after the fall of Raqqa and the outlook for Syria and its neighbors.
The only sound in the video from Raqqa is the howl of the wind and the hum of a pickup truck passing through block after obliterated city block. “Drive around Raqqa for hours and all you will see is destruction,” the BBC’s Quentin Sommerville wrote on Twitter, where he posted the video. “The pictures say enough.”
The buildings that weren’t flattened by airstrikes don’t have many of their walls or any windows left. In between them are either craters where buildings once stood or piles of rubble, with the occasional battered truck or car in the wreckage. Bodies are buried somewhere underneath.