Iraqis return to booby-trapped Mosul to start rebuilding lives after hellish battle
Iraqi prime minister Haider Al Abadi declared the city liberated last month. But that doesn’t mean life has returned to normal for its residents — or for the men who fought to reclaim it from ISIL. Florian Neuhof reports
Almost a month after victory was declared in Mosul, civilians are still picking up the pieces of their pre-ISIL lives.
Large areas of the Iraqi city lie in ruins, particularly in west Mosul where the fighting was more intense and the destruction wrought more savage.
Although in the east of the city – which was liberated first – life again pulsates through the streets as though the war was a distant memory, western neighbourhoods remain barely a shadow of their former selves.
In the bombed-out area of Al Shifa, young boys dive in and out of craters and collapsed buildings on the western shore of the Tigris river, scavenging for metal they can sell to provide for their families.
The United Nations estimates it will take US$1 billion (Dh3.7bn) to repair the basic infrastructure of Mosul. More will be needed to replace the family homes and businesses that are now piles of rubble.
About 900,000 people – half the city’s pre-war population – were displaced by the battle for the city, the UN says. Many have no homes to return to but even for those who do, returning may not be a safe or easy option.
Homemade bombs and explosives laid on an industrial scale by the extremists in Mosul and other areas of northern Iraq are killing hundreds of civilians and hampering efforts to bring life back to normal.
On a hot summer night in west Mosul, Col Muntathar Al Shammari sits on a sofa near the air-conditioning unit and watches ISIL propaganda clips on his tablet.
“Qannas,” he mutters, [sniper], as he streams video of extremist sharpshooters in action in the battle for Mosul, which was declared won earlier that day, July 10, by Iraqi prime minister Haider Al Abadi after nine months of fighting.
One clip shows an ISIL sniper shooting a soldier of the Iraqi special operations forces – the counter-terrorism unit to which Col Al Shammari belongs.
The officer, who commands the Mosul battalion of Isof’s second brigade, puts down the tablet and reaches for a cigarette. A portly man, he sits relaxed in denim shorts and a T-shirt.
The spacious family home in the Mosul Al Jadida district has been Col Al Shammari’s base since his battalion helped liberate the area. The unit’s final task was to lead the attack on the Old City, Mosul’s historic core. It swiftly achieved its objectives and has now halted its advance – the reason why the colonel is kicking back.
His quiet evening is interrupted by a group of men in the distinctive black uniforms of the special forces. They step into the living room one by one, politely shaking the hands of everyone sitting on the sofa that curves around one side of the room in a horseshoe shape. The platoon has come straight from the devastated Old City, where their position abuts the final pocket of ISIL resistance.
The soldiers have come to honour their commander. They gather around the 37-year-old colonel to present him with an old bolt-action rifle they found in the rubble, then wrap an Iraqi flag around his neck before launching into an Iraqi victory chant.
When the chanting stops, Col Al Shammari addresses his troops. “You are the ones who should be celebrated. You are the ones who have been fighting this battle,” he says.
Col Al Shammari is referring to a self-congratulatory victory speech made earlier in the day by Mr Al Abadi, who travelled to Mosul for the occasion. The colonel has little time for the politicians basking in the glory of the military’s achievement. But he cares deeply for his men, who adore him.
“The ones who are celebrating, like the prime minister, they lead normal lives. But we have fought for a long time, and we lost a lot of men. We might celebrate the victory, but in our hearts we are sad,” he says once the platoon has left.
Since the attack on ISIL-held Mosul began on October 17, Isof has been in the thick of it. The elite troops flushed the militants out of east Mosul almost single-handedly, then plunged into the fight to liberate the west bank of the Tigris.
The price of success has been high. A US government report released in May – two months before the end of the fighting – put the casualty rate of the special forces in Mosul at 40 per cent. The army, federal police and the emergency response division, another elite group, also suffered heavy casualties.
A reminder of the civilian suffering in Mosul walks through the door a little later. Propped up by Col Al Shammari’s assistant , an old man in a dirty thobe is hunched over a crutch as he slowly makes his way in.
He is from Al Zinjili, a neighbourhood in west Mosul liberated by Col Al Shammari’s battalion after bitter fighting.
The battle for west Mosul, which began in February, was more bloody and destructive than the contest for the east bank. To overcome stiff resistance with depleted forces, the Iraqis increasingly called on air support and artillery fire by the US-led coalition. While in east Mosul life pulsates in the streets today as if the war is a distant memory, western neighbourhoods such as Al Zinjili are battered and almost emptied of inhabitants.
After greeting Col Al Shammari, the old man begins his lament: One of his four daughters was injured by an explosive booby trap and is now in a hospital in nearby Erbil. His house is destroyed, and the family displaced.
Col Al Shammari knows the story. He helped the daughter get to hospital, and the old man has previously been around to beg for food. The officer says a few words to his assistant, who leaves the room and returns with 500,000 Iraqi
dinar (Dh1,571). Col Al Shammari hands the cash to the man, who thanks him before shuffling off.
The colonel’s close ties to Mosul help explain his generosity. His battalion was stationed there when ISIL attacked in 2014 and the unit had to beat a fighting retreat as the army and the police force collapsed. Before ISIL, the commander spent several years in the city rooting out terror cells, the counter-terrorism work that Isof specialises in.
Because of his knowledge of the city, Col Al Shammari is more aware than most of the need to help its residents rebuild homes and livelihoods.
The costs are huge. The United Nations estimates it will take US$1 billion (Dh3.7bn) to repair the basic infrastructure of Mosul: roads; electricity supply; water pipes; schools. More will be needed to replace family homes and businesses that are now piles of rubble. Experts doubt the government will stump up the cash required to revive the city.
“The cost of rebuilding Mosul is beyond the budgetary capacity of the state, nor could Iraq project-manage such a venture without huge waste and corruption,” says Michael Knights, of the Washington Institute, a US think tank. This suggests a slow, partial rebuild with an international role.
About 900,000 people – half the city’s pre-war population – have been displaced by the battle, the UN says. They live in camps that have sprung up around Mosul, or have moved in with relatives. Many have no homes to return to.
While shops, mechanics, and restaurants are reopening even in the city’s desolate western sector, money remains scarce. In the bombed-out Al Shifa district, 12-year-old Hossam and his five-year-old brother Bassem play in the craters and collapsed buildings that make up the urban terrain on the western shore of the Tigris.
The boys pull at any wires, engine parts and other scraps of metal they can detach from ruins and damaged vehicles and throw them on to a cart.
Hossam, Bassem and other boys sell their finds for a few dollars to help their families.
“We start early in the morning, and sometimes we work until it gets dark,” Hossam says. “Sometimes we make 10,000 dinar, sometimes 5,000, sometimes just 1,000.”
Like many Moslawis (as Mosul natives are called), the boys’ father was a civil servant when ISIL stormed the city. When the government stopped sending money to Mosul, he lost his salary. The family was struggling even before Iraqi forces cut off Mosul, which drove up food prices, and their house was destroyed in the fighting. Now they are waiting for Baghdad to reinstate his father’s salary, Hossam says.
The bustling markets and new shops lining the streets in east Mosul show that private enterprise has thrived after the battle, offsetting the government’s tardy response.
But the damage on the west bank is much heavier. Over 800,000 civilians were trapped on the west bank
– the destruction of all the bridges that could have been used to escape meant that they remained stuck. The old city was heavily congested and witnessed bloody street battles. As ISIL fighters hid in tunnels thousands of metres long, and the international coalition escalated air strikes, destruction levels reached new heights. West Mosul had suffered from armed gangs and Al Qaeda affiliates for close to a decade on that side of the river.
Neglect of Iraq’s Sunnis under former prime minister Nouri Al Maliki fostered the rise of ISIL, both in providing a security vacuum and leaving some disenfranchised young men to be lured by militants.
Further lack of care could lead to a resurgence of the group, whose network of cells challenged government control even before the collapse of security forces as the militants’ advanced in 2014.
Experts believe there is time for the government to prevent the city from slipping from its control again.
“It will be very hard for ISIL to immediately restart at 2014 level due to the antipathy of the population towards them and due to the killing of so many of their personnel and the unmasking of many of their support elements in Mosul,” says Mr Knights.
The military has been criticised for the torture and extrajudicial executions of ISIL suspects in Mosul. But the security forces now are less likely to mistreat Mosul’s inhabitants to the same extent as pre-2014, when Mr Maliki’s discriminatory, anti-Sunni politics led to widespread abuses in the city and fanned the flames of sectarian hatred.
“The security commanders on the ground now are a different group from Maliki’s crew, and contain a much higher proportion of Ninawa natives,” says Nate Rabkin, managing editor of the Inside Iraqi Politics website, referring to Nineveh, the governorate in which Mosul lies.
A priority for police, army, intelligence services and special forces is to root out terrorists in Mosul before they grow in strength.
“The post-Saddam Iraqi government has never been very good at intelligence. If they can improve, they can prevent a new insurgency. If not, it would seem almost inevitable,” says Mr Rabkin.
Once it has helped eliminate the remaining ISIL strongholds in Iraq, Col Al Shammari’s battalion will resume its pre-war work of hunting terrorists in Mosul.
The colonel insists he can still call on a network of informants in the city, and is well equipped to prevent Mosul from falling to militants again. But he has been fighting ISIL and its predecessors for too long to be complacent.
“It is like a disease – there is a chance this will happen again,” he says.
A US government report in May – two months before the end of the fighting – put the casualty rate of the special forces in Mosul at 40 per cent