Iraqi forces take back Mosul
IS retribution likely after city reclaimed
MOSUL: Dressed in a military uniform, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi arrived in Mosul on Sunday to congratulate Iraq’s armed forces for wresting the city from the Islamic State (IS). The victory marked the formal end of a bloody campaign that lasted nearly nine months, left much of Iraq’s second-largest city in ruins, killed thousands of people and displaced nearly 1 million more.
While Iraqi troops were still mopping up the last pockets of resistance and could be facing guerrilla attacks for weeks, the military began to savour its triumph in the shattered alleyways of the old city, where the IS, also known as Isis or Isil, put up a fierce last stand.
Hanging over the declaration of victory is the reality of the hard road ahead. The security forces in Mosul still face dangers, including IS sleeper cells and suicide bombers. And they must clear houses rigged with explosive booby traps so civilians can return and services can be restored.
Mosul was the largest city in either Iraq or Syria held by the IS, and its loss signifies the waning territorial claims of a terrorist group that had its beginnings in the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. The group is also threatened with the loss of its de facto capital, the Syrian city of Raqqa, which is encircled by Arab and Kurdish fighters supported by the US.
But the end of the IS’ hold on Mosul does not mean peace is at hand. Other cities and towns in Iraq remain under the militants’ control, and Iraqis expect an increase in terrorist attacks in urban centres, especially in the capital, Baghdad, as the group reverts to its insurgent roots.
“It’s going to continue to be hard every day,” said Col Pat Work, commanding officer of the 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, which is carrying out the US advisory effort here.
“Iraqi security forces need to be on the top of their game, and we need to be over their shoulder helping them as they move through this transition to consolidate gains and really sink their hold in on the west side,” Work said as he rolled through the streets of western Mosul recently in an armoured vehicle. “Isis will challenge this.”
The victory could have been sweeter as the Iraqis were denied the symbolism of hanging the national flag from the Grand al-Nouri Mosque and its distinctive leaning minaret, which was wiped from the skyline in recent weeks as a final act of barbarity by IS militants who packed it with explosives and brought it down as government troops approached.
It was at that mosque in June 2014 where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi strode to the top of a pulpit and declared himself the leader of a caliphate straddling the borders of Iraq and Syria, a vast territory where for three years Islamic extremists have governed with a strict form of Islamic law, held women as sex slaves, carried out public beheadings and plotted terrorist attacks against the West.
This past week, as fighting raged nearby, Iraqi soldiers took selfies in front of the stump of the minaret and posed at the spot where Mr Baghdadi made his speech. Destruction surrounded them, as did the stench of decaying bodies of IS fighters, left to rot in the blazing sun.
The battle for Mosul began in October, after months of planning between Iraqis and US advisers, and some Barack Obama administration officials had hoped it would conclude before they left office, giving a boost to the departing president’s efforts to defeat the IS.
Instead, it lasted until now, and it was far more brutal than many expected. With dense house-to-house fighting and a ceaseless barrage of snipers and suicide bombers, the fight for Mosul was some of the toughest urban warfare since World War II, US commanders have said. Iraqi officers, whose lives have been defined by ceaseless war, said the fighting was among the worst they had seen.
“I have been with the Iraqi army for 40 years,” said Maj Gen Sami al-Aradi, a commander of Iraq’s special forces. “I have participated in all of the battles of Iraq, but I’ve never seen anything like the battle for the old city.” He continued: “We have been fighting for each metre. And when I say we have been fighting for each metre, I mean it literally.”
Even as Mr Abadi arrived outfitted in the black uniform of Iraq’s elite Counterterrorism Service, Iraqi forces were pressing to erase a pocket of IS resistance by the Tigris River. Speaking from his base in the old city, Lt Gen Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi, a senior commander in that service, said the militants’ enclave was about 200 yards long and 50 yards wide and that he expected it to be taken later in the day or on Monday.
The retaking of the city, by all accounts, came at a great cost. Sensitive to the mounting casualties, the Iraqi government does not disclose how many of its troops have been killed. But deaths among Iraqi security forces in the Mosul battle had reached 774 by the end of March, according to US officers, which suggests the toll is more than 1,000 now. Even more civilians are estimated to have been killed, many at the hands of the IS and some inadvertently by US air strikes. At least seven journalists were killed, including two French correspondents and their fixer, an Iraqi Kurdish journalist, in a mine explosion in recent weeks.
The Iraqis and their international partners will be confronted by the immense challenge of restoring essential services like electricity and rebuilding destroyed hospitals, schools, homes and bridges, which were wrecked in the ground combat or by the air strikes, artillery fire and Himars rocket attacks carried out by the US-led coalition to help Iraqi troops advance.
“When the fighting stops, the humanitarian crisis continues,” said Lise Grande, deputy special representative for Iraq for the UN secretary-general.
The military victory in Mosul has come without a political agreement between Iraq’s two largest communities, Sunni and Shia Arabs, whose stark sectarian divisions led to the rise of the IS. For many members of Iraq’s minority Sunnis, the IS was seen as a protector against abuses they had suffered under Iraq’s Shia-led government, especially under the former prime minister, Nouri Kamal al-Maliki.
After the IS seized Mosul in 2014, many Sunnis welcomed them. Mr Maliki was then removed from office, replaced by Mr Abadi, a more moderate and less sectarian leader, but one widely viewed as weak. Under Mr Abadi, there has been no meaningful reconciliation.
“I will leave Mosul because it has become a destroyed city,” said Aisha Abdullah, a teacher who endured life under the IS. “In every corner of it there is memory and blood.”