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U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces announced Tuesday that they had\u00a0captured the city of Raqqa<\/a>\u00a0from Islamic State militants.<\/p>\n “Everything is finished in Raqqa, our forces have taken full control of Raqqa,” SDF spokesman Talal Sello told\u00a0AFP<\/a>. A formal declaration would be announced after operations to clear any remaining sleeper cells and to remove landmines in the city were completed, Sello added.<\/p>\n The move is a major setback for the Islamic State which considered Raqqa the de-facto capital of its self-declared caliphate. It comes on the third\u00a0anniversary<\/a>\u00a0of the global effort to defeat ISIS.<\/p>\n Raqqa was the first provincial capital to fall from government control in\u00a0March 2013<\/a>\u00a0after it was captured by a rebel army. The army included both Syrian opposition groups and more hard line \u00a0parties including al-Nusra and the Islamic State.<\/p>\n A civilian government \u00a0that was established in the city divided two months later, and less than a year later ISIS recaptured Raqqa and named the the capital of their\u00a0caliphate<\/a>.<\/p>\n About 900 civilians have been killed since the the start of the five-month operation, including 570 people in coalition air raids, according to the\u00a0Syrian Network for Human Rights<\/a>. The Britain-based\u00a0Syrian Observatory for Human Rights<\/a>\u00a0put the civilian death toll at 1,130 people. American journalist\u00a0James Foley<\/a>\u00a0was beheaded in the mountains south of the city.<\/p>\n SDF fighters pulled down the Islamic State’s black flag from the city’s National Hospital near the city’s stadium, according to a Reuters\u00a0report<\/a>.<\/p>\n Special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS Brett McGurk\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0in August that the U.S. would attempt to perform a “stabilization” in Raqqa — including demining, removing rubble from major pathways to allow trucks and equipment through, and “basic electricity, sewage, water, the basic essentials to allow populations to come back to their home.”<\/p>\n It is not clear when the\u00a0300,000 civilians<\/a>\u00a0who have fled Raqqa since April during the operation will be able to return.<\/p>\n