[4] On 3 February 2021, a shoemaking and tailoring workshop for prisoners was established in collaboration between Turkish-Dutch NGO Sumud and Turkey's Ministry of Youth and Sports.

[6][7] Syrian Foreign Ministry expressed their objection through Syria's official news agency SANA, and named the decision "a dangerous act and a flagrant violation of international law".

[8] In the Syrian Civil War, al-Rai was captured by Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces and held until early February 2014, when the FSA-allies the Al-Tawhid Brigade and Conquest Brigade were assaulted by a predominantly Chechen unit of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, (ISIL) who seized the town on 3 February 2014.

[10] In the course of their Northern Aleppo offensive, FSA units captured the town twice in April 2016 and in June 2016, but both times were not able to withstand counterattacks by ISIL.

[11][12] On 3 September 2016, rebels were reported to have recaptured the town for the fourth time with the help of Turkish forces (including tanks) and to have seized several villages close by.