[6] The first 50 recruits were all Arab[7] men and women,[8] some of them former members of the Asayish, and trained by U.S. and Jordanian instructors "on how to conduct patrols, diffuse disputes, deal with car bombs and suicide bombers, and how to man a checkpoint".

[14][15][16] After the end of the Battle of Raqqa in October 2017, the Syrian Democratic Forces gradually began to hand over security responsibilities in the city to the RISF, beginning with the al-Mashleb neighborhood in November.

[18] In May 2018, tensions built up between members of Arab tribes, most notably the Syrian Democratic Forces group Liwa Thuwar al-Raqqa, and the rest of the alliance and the RISF over recruitment issues in Raqqa.

A curfew was put in place in both Raqqa city and the rest of the governorate on 23 June, as the Syrian Democratic Forces and RISF besieged Thuwar al-Raqqa's headquarters and arrested between 90[19] and 200 of its members the next day.

[20] By 25 June, the Syrian Democratic Forces and RISF had captured all of Thuwar al-Raqqa fighters and their weapons in Raqqa, completely defeating the group, and the curfew was ended.