Mosul waits for battle against Islamic State with hope and anxiety
The offensive to retake Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit from Islamic State jihadis is being closely monitored by those in nearby Mosul, as Tikrit’s fate may determine Mosul’s destiny as well. (Associated Press)
BAGHDAD — Despite living under the brutal reign of the Islamic State jihadis since June, residents of Mosul are watching the battle to liberate nearby Tikrit with a mixture of hope and dread.
They know they’re next.
As Iraqi forces pounded Islamic State fighters in Tikrit and said they expected to reach the center of late dictator Saddam Hussein’s hometown in a few days, some Mosulites yearned for the offensive to end the Islamic State’s reign of terror in their city, the second-largest in the country.
“Life under the Islamic State’s rule is like a big prison,” said Umi Ali, a professor at Mosul University who recently escaped to Baghdad after enduring the Islamic State’s harsh interpretation of Shariah law since the militants seized much of northern Iraq this summer. “People in Mosul, they want to end this tragedy.”
Others were also nervous about the prospect of the Iraqi army’s mostly Shiite soldiers and Iran-backed Shiite militias running roughshod over the Sunni Muslim majorities who live in Mosul and most of the other towns now under the Islamic State’s control.
“People are afraid of revenge acts,” said Abu Ahmed, who lives in Mosul. “People are scared of a prolonged, big battle that might demolish the entire city, leading to a human catastrophe. I am with the army as long as it is not sectarian.”
The long-awaited offensive against the Islamic State that started this month in Tikrit is the first step in a campaign slated to reach a climax with an assault on Mosul that could begin as early as next month. (A Pentagon briefer in February all but predicted the Mosul operation would begin by April or May, a disclosure new Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has said was a mistaken disclosure of “military secrets.”)
On Monday, Iraqi forces were solidifying their chokehold around Tikrit while clearing the land mines and sniper nests that the Islamic State — also known as ISIS or ISIL — had put in their path downtown. “We have sealed them off from all the directions,” said Abbas Al Maliki, a Shiite militia leader. “They have no option — they die or surrender.”
The Iraqi forces, both regular troops and militias, greatly outnumber the Islamic State fighters believed to be holding Tikrit, but there was a slight lull in the offensive that Iraqi officials attributed to the need to call up reinforcements and to allow civilians to clear out before the final push to take the city.
“We want to give the people of Tikrit the chance to evacuate their areas in order to save their lives, and also to try as much as possible to preserve the infrastructure of the city,” Mohammed Salem al-Ghabban, Iraq’s interior minister, said in an interview on the state television channel Al Iraqiya.
Waves of anxiety
But reports that Shiite fighters burned Sunni homes around Tikrit last week cast a shadow over those gains — and sent fresh waves of anxiety through the residents of Mosul. After news of the burnings emerged, Iraqi Sunni preacher Sheik Abdel Sattar Abdul Jabbar urged Iraqi military leaders to restrain the Shiite militias acting under the banner of the so-called Popular Mobilization, a group that includes around 40 Iranian military advisers.
“We ask that actions follow words to punish those who are attacking houses in Tikrit,” Abdul Jabbar said during his Friday sermon in Baghdad, the AP reported. “We are sorry about those acting in revenge that might ignite tribal anger and add to our sectarian problems.”
Similarly, the Peace Brigade, a militia linked to the Mahdi Army, founded by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to fight the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, made a point of issuing a statement to calm Iraqi Sunnis after its leaders announced their fighters would be marching north to Tikrit to join the Shiite militias working with the Iraqi army.
Spokesman Ali al-Mousawi said Peace Brigade militiamen would fight alongside Tikrit’s Sunni tribes to free the city. “It’s them who should lead this fight, since Tikrit is where their homes and families are,” he told reporters in Baghdad.
Still, Mosul residents said they feel like they are in the impossible position of choosing between the certainty of living under the harsh Islamic State regime or the uncertainly of another potentially unfriendly occupying force that treats them not as victims but as the militants’ co-religionists. Unhappiness with the Shiite-dominated government of former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was widely blamed for the ease with which the Islamic State was able to expand across Iraq’s Sunni-dominated regions last summer so quickly.
The Mosul unease is only fueled by the fear of being caught in a war zone for days, weeks or months. New Kurdish accusations that the Islamic State used chlorine gas as a weapon have magnified those fears exponentially.
“They are all afraid of the Islamic State reaction,” said Mr. Ali, the professor. “The militants might have booby-trapped the entire city. They are afraid of militias too, who are trying to depict all the people of Mosul as ISIS members, which is not true for a city with 1.7 million people.”
Making matters more complicated, a massive influx of pro-Islamic State Iraqis from throughout the region has flooded into Mosul in recent months. It’s not clear how the Iraqi army and Shiite militias will root them out of the city if they seek to blend in with the rest of the population. But their presence could give battle-hardened Shiite fighters an excuse not to distinguish between Sunni Muslim civilians and Islamic State fighters.
“Those who are with the Islamic State are either supporting them ideologically, or they are getting commercial benefits from them,” said Mr. Ahmed. “They do not want the Islamic State to leave.”
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