Last Monday, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), captured Paradise Square, where ISIS publicly performed violent acts on people and forced others to watch while publicizing them on social media.

The next day, the four month battle to take back Raqqa, the Syrian capital, came to an end. The fall of this city, where ISIS has gathered after its victories, is a potential symbol of their movement collapsing. The most wanted terrorist group’s capital fell, so why isn’t the government talking about it?

Since 2013, Raqqa has been a “war zone,” one of the most violent places you could go, where harsh diseases were present and medieval violent killings like beheadings happened in the streets and were then publicized on social media. The infrastructure is now destroyed and for the remaining people held up in Raqqa, there is no exit. Although most violence in Raqqa has ended, the Kurdish Democratic Forces are in control and searching for any more Islamic State cells. Once troops finish clearing the banks of the Euphrates River, the formal declaration of the takeover of Raqqa will be finalized.

In recent months, the Islamic State has steadily lost territory in Iraq and Syria, including Iraq’s second-largest city of Mosul. This takeover is just another event that will help continue the goal to eliminate this terrorist group completely, and hopefully after the troops clear the area, they can start rebuilding this once beautiful city. But the United States, specifically President Trump, has been focused on smaller things such as lack of patriotism because of kneeling in the NFL . Why hasn’t he mentioned anything about this crucial event happening in Syria? This long ongoing war that is happening with ISIS is a prevalent world issue that should be addressed by our government and shared more publicly with the community, as we are backing the Kurdish forces in the area.