Shaken by car bomb, Mosul residents fear return of Daesh nightmares
mosul (iraq) — A deadly car bomb in Iraq’s Mosul, the first since the city was recaptured from militants, has left residents shaken and terrified that past nightmares are returning to haunt them.
The blast late on Thursday hit the popular Abu Layla restaurant in Mosul, the northern city that for three years served as the Daesh group’s Iraq headquarters.
When residents awoke to the scene of destruction on Friday morning, they feared their bloody past with Daesh was not yet behind them. “We were liberated, so we thought that security was back,” Mossab, a 25-year-old restaurant employee, said. “But now it’s worse than ever.”
Three people were killed and 12 wounded in the bombing, medical and security sources said.
The restaurant suffered significant damage. One side, which sits on a road junction, seemed to have its windows blown out and the facade partly sheared off.
The cars in the street all had shattered or cracked windscreens and were covered in black ash and debris. Mossab’s car, parked nearby, was one of them. “I’ve been working for four years to save up to
buy it, but it all went in the blink of an eye,” he said, devastated.
Iraqi security forces deployed outside the restaurant on Friday, standing guard as cleaning crews worked to remove the debris.
Residents nervously came to inspect the damage.
Khodor Ali, a 38-year-old who lives nearby, was worried there would be more violence. “If the security situation stays like this, then our future is in the gutter,” he said.
Troops and paramilitaries recaptured Mosul in July last year, months before the government declared Daesh had finally been defeated in Iraq.
But the group still carries out bloody hit-and-run attacks, mostly in the rugged mountains of the north and in desert areas along the western border with Syria.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Thursday’s attack, but a statement by security forces blamed it on “terrorists”.
Ali said Iraqi officials were at least partly to blame for Thursday night’s attack.
“If they weren’t able to protect the city, they shouldn’t stay,” he said angrily. —