The New Yorker’s Robin Wright on the ignominious end of the ISIS Caliphate: “History will record that the Islamic State caliphate—a bizarre pseudo-state founded on illusory goals, created by a global horde of jihadis, and enforced with perverted viciousness—survived for three years, three months and some eighteen days.”

+ Eery drone footage shows what was left of Raqqa when it fell.

+ The LA Times with one hell of a roadtrip: A trip through horror, confusion and contradictions in Syria.