Iraq’s Mosul residents feel relief, and anxiety, as ‘liberation’ nears
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – As Iraqi forces prepare to attack Islamic State in its de facto capital of Mosul, residents inside the city and others who have managed to escape expressed relief at the prospect their home could be liberated from the terrorist group’s harsh rule.
But they also warned that, if the assault is successful, the city’s Sunni-majority population would refuse to return to what they called the repressive yoke imposed by the Shi’ite-led government in Baghdad in the past.
The Iraqi army and its elite units that will lead the offensive are gradually taking up positions around the city 400 km. north of Baghdad, from whose Grand Mosque in 2014 Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning regions of Iraq and Syria.
The offensive is slated for late September, said Hisham al-Hashimi, who works for the government as a consultant on ISIS affairs and is author of the book The World of Daesh.
Eight Mosulite men, contacted secretly by phone on the outskirts of the city, said signs of dissent are increasing ahead of the expected assault. They all spoke on condition of not being identified for fear of retribution.
Walls have been daubed with the Arabic letter M, for “muqawama,” or resistance, or two parallel stripes, one red and one black, representing the Iraqi flag, said a resident who spoke from one of the rare areas that still gets mobile telephone coverage.
“These are acts of real bravery,” he said. “If you’re caught, you’re dead.”
The Iraqi national flag was raised twice in public squares, once in June and again in July, infuriating the militants who tore them down the next morning, residents told Reuters, authenticating videos posted on Facebook pages.
An unknown number of people were arrested after the July incident, among them former army officers, they said.
With a population at one time as large as two million, Mosul is the largest urban center under the ultra-hardline militants’ control. Its fall would mark their effective defeat in Iraq, according to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
Many ISIS leaders have fled Mosul for Syria with their families ahead of the planned offensive, Iraq’s defense minister Khaled al-Obeidi said on July 30.
As Iraqi forces tighten the noose, the militants have grown increasingly paranoid, residents said.
The militants have always kept tight control on communication to preempt hostile propaganda and prevent informants from passing on information to the Iraqi forces or the US-led anti-ISIS military coalition that is carrying out most of the air strikes on their positions.
They blocked mobile networks in 2014 and banned satellite TV earlier this year, allowing home Internet access only through a server they controlled.
As of a month ago, they restricted Internet access further to a handful of official Wi-Fi centers manned by supervisors who monitor content over users’ shoulders.
At checkpoints set up by ISIS amniya, or security committee, people are asked if they have Facebook and must unlock their phones to prove that they do not.
“Thank God I don’t even know what Facebook is, but I was jailed for a week and paid a fine because they found dancing music saved on my mobile,” said a taxi driver reached by phone.
Younis, a high school teacher of Arabic literature in his 40s, fled Mosul with his family in May. His biggest fear was that his son, just eight years old, was being indoctrinated into the group’s extreme interpretation of Islam.
“We escaped from Mosul and risked death for my son’s sake; I wanted to rescue him from turning into a jihadist,” he said, speaking in a flat in Baghdad, holding his boy in his arms.
“How can I stay silent and I’m seeing Daesh brainwashing my son and teaching him how to become a suicide bomber?” he said.
He showed a photocopy of the cover of a fifth grader’s textbook featuring a boy with an AK-47 machine gun on his shoulder.
“I know it’s risky to keep this paper with me, but I decided to hide it and show it to anybody who asks me how life was under Daesh,” he said puffing on a cigarette, which is banned by ISIS.
He expressed frustration that his wife has continued to wear the full veil, or niqab, after moving to Baghdad. The niqab is compulsory under the Islamic State in Mosul, even on store mannequins, and women are forbidden to walk outside without a male guardian.
“Don’t cover your face please for God’s sake,” he pleaded with his wife. “No need to be afraid anymore, you’re a human being and not a slave.”
Younis said he paid a taxi driver $5,000 to help them flee Mosul via the Kurdish Peshmerga lines east of the city, taking advantage of the confusion that ensued after advances made by the Kurdish and Iraqi forces in May.
The army progressed further in July, capturing the Qayyara airfield 60 km. south of Mosul, which will serve as the main staging post for the expected offensive.
Once the fighting intensifies, as many as one million people could be driven from their homes in northern Iraq, “posing a massive humanitarian problem for the country,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said last month.
Over 3.4 million people have already been forced by conflict to leave their homes across Iraq, taking refuge in areas under control of the government or in the Kurdish region.
The Peshmerga fighters have been deployed to the north and east of Mosul, with their back to their Kurdish region that hosts a base of US-led coalition troops assisting Iraqi forces. Local Sunni fighters will also join the offensive.