ISIL cells’ campaign of terror in east Mosul
Sleeper cells have become active after city’s east was freed and diminished security forces struggle to stop them
MOSUL // Iraqi forces standing guard over liberated eastern Mosul are battling a growing threat from ISIL sleeper cells.
As the campaign to oust ISIL from west Mosul gets under way, troops trying to clear booby-traps the extremists left behind on the eastern side face constant fear of attacks by suicide bombers who hid when the area was freed.
“It might take six months or more before the east side of Mosul is cleared of sleeper cells,” policeman Col Uday Saber said.
With Mosul’s security forces severely depleted after more than two years under ISIL rule, the National Security Service and what remains of the police force are struggling to contain the terrorists as they rebuild.
“There are a lot more cells in Mosul now than before the occupation,” said Col Isham Mahmoud of the NSS.
On Sunday, hours after the military launched its offensive in the west, two suicide bombers attacked in the east, killing three soldiers and two civilians.
And on February 10, just two weeks after the government declared eastern Mosul liberated, a suicide bomber attacked the popular My Fair Lady restaurant in the central Zuhour neigh- bourhood, killing 11 people.
Security forces are struggling to halt the onslaught. The NSS has about 200 men in Mosul and the police force for Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital, has only 6,000 police officers in the city.
That compares with the 28,000 officers before ISIL took over in June 2014, Col Saber said.
Forces fled after ISIL stormed the city. The policemen that did not make it out were captured and brutally murdered, and their bodies dumped in mass graves outside the city.
One site alone, a sinkhole to the south of the city, is thought to contain the bodies of at least 2,100 officers, Col Saber said.
A batch of 1,700 newly trained policemen is expected in east Mosul any day, but rooting out ISIL remains a tough task.
A survivor of the My Fair Lady bombing believes the fear of being caught by security forces will drive the extremists to step up suicide attacks. “Daesh members hiding in east Mosul know that they will be killed sooner or later,” said Mohammed, a son of the restaurant owners who lost a brother and uncle in the attack.
“That’s why they do something like this, because they think they will go to heaven if they do.”
Extremist terror has long plagued Mosul, and the number of ISIL supporters there grew after the group took over the city.
But after more than two years of tyrannical rule, the extremist group is deeply unpopular with most residents of Mosul’s east.
The NSS claims that up to 200 calls are made each day to a hotline set up to pass on information on ISIL members or sympathisers remaining there.
But with resources limited, it takes time to follow up on this flood of information and make arrests.
Meanwhile, the hunt for land- mines and improvised explosive devices continues with some success.
After a recent tip-off from one of its informants in the city, a convoy of black National Security Service pickup trucks went to the edge of an industrial zone and approached a row of abandoned mechanics’ garages.
Behind a corrugated tin sliding gate they found landmines, C4 explosives and metal ball bearings wrapped tightly in duct tape.
There were oil canisters filled with home- made explosives, and pressure plates used to ignite them had been stacked on wooden planks to prevent water damage.
As the troops searched deeper into the industrial estate, they found piles of mortar rounds in a workshop and sacks of phosphate – used to make improvised explosive devices, stacked high in a warehouse.
Next door was a car bomb factory with a military vehicle left behind by the retreating militants before it could be turned into a bomb on wheels. Maj Muntathar, who led the raid, said he could not say whether the bombs were made while ISIL still controlled the area, or in secret after Iraqi forces drove most of the militants out.