In March 2013, during the Syrian Civil War, Islamist jihadist militants from Al-Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham, the Free Syrian Army, and other groups overran the government loyalists in the city during the Battle of Raqqa (2013) and declared it under their control, after they had taken the central square and pulled down the statue of the former president of Syria, Hafez al-Assad. Raqqa was the first provincial capital to fall to the Syrian rebels.