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Article snippet: RAQQA, Syria — From the top-floor sniper position in western Raqqa, members of an American-backed militia scanned the ground for any signs of movement. “We have hot soup, we have bread: Come out and surrender,” one of the fighters said on a loudspeaker. “The ISIS members and their families who surrendered to us are safe.” I was one of a handful of journalists who accompanied the militia, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, for about 10 days. Twice I went to the front lines in the city, which has been largely liberated after a four-month battle. I talked to civilians who had endured Islamic State rule for more than four years and survived. Only a few weeks ago, the battle for Raqqa, the self-proclaimed capital of the Islamic State, appeared to be at a stalemate. Hundreds of die-hard Islamic State fighters there were using thousands of civilians as human shields. But the resistance began to crumble in recent weeks. On Tuesday, the city was declared liberated, although pockets of fighting remain. Last week, when I visited eastern Raqqa, it was hard to find a street or building that had not been damaged by the fighting. The ceaseless whiz and boom of shells fired by American-manned heavy artillery from a firebase 12 miles outside the city sent plumes of smoke rising from the relatively small area still under the Islamic State’s control. Fighters from the militia kept watch from an observation post in a bombed-out building. Some of their comrades had been cut off ... Link to the full article to read more