Raqqa

Raqqa is a city on the north bank of the Euphrates in northern Syria. Known in Hellenistic and Roman times as Nikephorion and Kallinikos, it was the residence of the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid from 796 to 808, and in the 10th and 11th centuries it was held in turn by the Hamdanids and by Bedouin emirs such as the Numayrids. From 2014 to 2017 it was the de facto capital of the Islamic State group.