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question ideas. And now back to today's programme. Thank you. There's a city, a small one, tree-lined streets, busy markets. In fact, everything about it was

pretty ordinary until one day two years ago, the day so-called Islamic State swept in.

Men now had to grow beards women cover their faces. No more smoking in public, new school

textbooks were introduced. And then there were the beheadings and executions.

It went on for months and months until one hot morning in August this year.

That day, after weeks of fighting, Arab and Kurdish fighters freed the town of Manbidge in northern Syria,

pushing Islamic State fighters out of the city.

After the last one left, the town erupted.

People went out into the streets,

immediately, and started doing everything they've been banned from doing for the past two years.

It was like an instant reversal of life under Islamic State.

Men sat on street corners, cutting off each other's beards.

Women tore off their face fails and set fire to them.

An old woman lit a cigarette and laughed through the smoke. On the day of our liberation, this man said, we all felt reborn.

And that's just the story of one town. There are others like it. In fact lots of others.

Towns that have been freed from the grip of Islamic State, one after another.

A few years back, 10 million people lived under their control.

Now it's half that.

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