Jihadists trap Mosul residents, cut phone lines

BAGHDAD — Islamic State jihadists in the Iraqi city of Mosul were preparing Sunday for an assault from government forces by cutting phone lines and barring residents from fleeing the city.

Refugees and those still living in Iraq’s second-largest city said conditions have deteriorated as Islamic State comes under increasing pressure.

“You have to bring a guarantor to say you will come back in 10 days,” said Ghazwan, a Mosul resident recently arrived in Baghdad. “If you don’t come back, they are punished.”

He said he discovered this rule after a friend’s mother died because he couldn’t bring her to Baghdad for surgery. “People are trying to leave Mosul,” he said. “They closed the hospitals because they have no electricity or water.”

The decision to impose restrictions on residents who wish to leave appeared to be an attempt to stop mass flight.

When the Islamic State rebels arrived in Mosul in June, many Sunni residents welcomed the group, thinking it would be preferable to the Shiite-led government of then-prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, which they regarded as brutal and sectarian.

One immediate advantage was that the bombings carried out by the jihadists stopped, and the roads were open and safe for the first time for years, Ghazwan and other residents said.

Minorities such as Christians mostly fled. Those Christians who did not were given a two-day ultimatum in July to convert or leave. Since then, the group has courted unpopularity even among the Sunni population by imposing harsh rules of conduct and by blowing up the city’s best-known mosque.

The subsequent hardships, such as the lack of electricity and the shutdown of the cellphone network last month, have added to people’s difficulties. A resident still in the city, who asked not to be named, said phones had been cut off as a security measure. The rebels feared residents were phoning in jihadist positions to the government.

There was no sign of an immediate attack on the city, but government forces, backed by Shiite militias, have made some gains in recent weeks, including relieving a siege on Iraq’s largest oil refinery at Baiji, between Baghdad and Mosul.