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| An Iraqi woman comforts a grieving relative at a collection point for displaced citizens of Mosul in this Saturday, Nov. 12, 2016 photo in the Mosul district of Gogjali, Iraq. Residents fleeing the fighting in Mosul say that two years of rule by the Islamic State group crushed a city that was arguably the most multicultural in Iraq with a thriving identity, turning it into a place of darkness and fear. (AP Photo/Nish Nalbandian |
MOSUL,
Iraq (AP) — She survived the first stone that struck her, then the second.
One
of the Islamic State group's fighters bent down and pressed his fingers to the
side of her neck to check her pulse.
As
her horrified neighbors watched, extremists threw a third stone at the young
woman, who was accused of adultery. That one killed her.
It
was, for those who witnessed it, the cruelest moment in Mosul's descent into
fear, hunger and isolation under 2 ½ years of IS rule. Before the militants'
takeover, Iraq's second-largest city was arguably the most multicultural place
in the country, with a Sunni Muslim Arab majority but also thriving communities
of Kurds, Shiites, Christians and Yazidis. Together, they had created Mosul's
distinct identity, with its own cuisine, intellectual life and economy.
But
the Islamic State group turned Mosul into a place of literal and spiritual
darkness.
It
began with promises of order and of a religious utopia that appealed to some.
But over time, the militants turned crueler, the economy crumbled under the
weight of war and shortages set in. Those who resisted watched neighbors who
joined IS turn prosperous and vindictive. Parents feared for the brainwashing
of their children. By the end, as Iraqi troops besieged Mosul, the militants
hanged suspected spies from lampposts, and residents were cut off from the
world.
The
woman's killing in Mosul's Samah district shook to the core those in the crowd
who were forced to watch.
Several
witnesses described to The Associated Press how the woman and her alleged lover
were paraded blindfolded through the streets. The militants summoned everyone
they could find to watch. It was in August, after the militants had lost
strongholds in other parts of Iraq and Syria, prompting them to heighten their
repression.
"'Still
not dead,'" Samira Hamid recalled the militant pronouncing after he checked
the woman's pulse, before the lethal blow to her head. The man accused of being
her lover was flogged 150 times and forced to go to Syria to fight in IS ranks.
Another
witness, Sarmad Raad, found recalling the killing nearly unbearable.
"I
shut down," the 26-year-old said, "I just lost my mind."
The
AP interviewed dozens of residents who have left Mosul since Iraqi troops began
retaking outlying districts last month. They described life in a city that has
been virtually sealed off from the outside under the rule of the Islamic State
group. They spoke from Mosul's edges and from the refugee camps that are their
homes for the foreseeable future, even as smoke rose and artillery boomed from
nearby front lines.
For
many among Mosul's Sunni Arabs, rule by the Sunni militants of IS initially
seemed a respite from what they considered the heavy hand of Iraq's Shiite-led
central government in Baghdad.
As
Iraqi soldiers vanished in those first few weeks, people were simply happy to
see hated security checkpoints pulled down and traffic moving smoothly along
streets lined with low, pale buildings. Sunni insurgents have long been active
in Mosul, and Baghdad's clampdowns against them usually only fueled residents'
distrust.
But
even as families strolled in the parks and shops stayed open, signs emerged
that this group of fighters was unlike past insurgents who had worked strictly
underground. They were staying put: Trucks began hauling office furniture to
various government buildings, according to a blog called "Mosul Eye,"
written by a resident who took on the role of city historian.
Several
weeks later, the group declared its "caliphate" stretching across its
territory in Syria and Iraq.
Within
a month, the homes of Christians and other minorities were tagged with official
stickers — for "statistical purposes," IS officials said, according
to Mosul Eye. Christians and Shiites soon fled, leaving their marked homes and
belongings behind.
Kurds
were soon targeted as well.
"If
you turned in a Kurdish family, they gave you a car," said Hassan Ali
Mustapha, a retired prison guard. He said he moved into a home deserted by a
Kurdish family, after the family asked him through a mutual friend to do so to
keep Islamic State from taking it over.
Mustapha
walked with a heavy limp through the camp that is his family's new home. They
made their escape from Mosul first on foot and then by Iraqi government truck.
The
group imposed the extreme, severe vision of Islamic law across its zone of
control. Dress was strictly regulated, and clothes manufacturers were told to
report to Islamic State offices to receive the acceptable measurements. Women
were required to hide their faces and don black down to their fingertips. The
fine for violations — even as small as the wrong kind of stocking — was 25,000
dinars, around 20 dollars. Repeat offenders got lashes.
There
was another, widely feared punishment as well: The women's brigade of religious
enforcers used a metal-toothed device to deliver vicious, deep
"bites" on women they deemed as dressing improperly, according to two
women.
Punishments
were often public, and in a central square the group printed broadsheets
proclaiming how it would respond to disobedience. In one case, according to a
witness, there was a gleeful description of "criminals" being shoved
into a commercial oven to roast to death.
The
militants took a cut of all business through fees, fines or taxes. Even
roadside hawkers had to pay IS according to the size of the sheet on the ground
where they displayed their wares — 15,000 dinar ($12) per square meter. As they
described indignities piling up, the camp residents dragged their feet in the
dust to show just how small a space could be taxed.
Residents
learned to keep a mental tally of all the different rules — and find ways to
dissent.
The
most symbolic was the widespread refusal to send children to the schools, which
the extremists took over.
Mosul
prides itself on an ancient history of knowledge. Near the center of the city
are the ruins of the city of Nineveh where stone tablets more than 3,000 years
old were discovered in a library, inscribed with the Mesopotamian epic of
Gilgamesh, considered humanity's oldest surviving work of literature.
But
in the IS schools, lessons were about guns and warplanes. Mathematics courses
couldn't use a plus symbol because it resembled a Christian cross. Mosul's
biggest libraries were ransacked over a number of weeks, beginning in late 2014,
and the extremists set up bonfires to torch books on science and culture,
according to accounts at the time.
Though
IS threatened flogging and even death as punishments for absenteeism, students
and teachers alike stayed away from the university, according to Mosul Eye.
Schools
once free to everyone now involved fees that few could afford without a steady
paycheck. By mid-2014, steady income came only from joining the Islamic State
group. Many dismissed entirely the thought of paying their dwindling cash for a
worthless education.
"So
we didn't send them to school," said Khodriya Ahmed, a mother of 12 from
the outlying neighborhood of Gogjali. "For two or three years, Daesh only
educated their own children," she said, using the Arabic acronym for the
group.
Hussam
Ghareeb, a former soldier, also refused to send his children to IS-run schools.
He
is living in a camp with his family, including his 6-year-old son Omar.
"God
willing, you will be a doctor and help those who are hurt. Yes, son?" he
asked, turning to the boy. Omar has yet to set foot in a classroom.
The
group's propaganda insisted all was fine in the city. John Cantlie, a British
journalist held hostage by the Islamic State group for four years, has made
periodic appearances in videos filmed in Mosul, showing a market, an efficient
IS motorcycle police force and a city continuing to function despite the threat
of airstrikes from the Iraqi military and the U.S.-led coalition.
Members
of the actual police force, meanwhile, had either been killed or gone into
hiding as IS hunted down policemen or soldiers to eliminate the group of people
best able to fight against them.
Oday
Mustapha Suleiman, a former soldier, knew of two police officers killed by
militants, as well as his brother. Suleiman himself spent most of his time
inside his house for fear of being caught.
"They
drove through the streets with a microphone, calling our names," he said.
"For 10 days I hid, just pacing between my room and the front door because
they wanted to cut off my head."
Azhar
Yonas, a small, nervous man who fingered his prayer beads as he spoke, said his
name was on an IS list of police officers so he went into hiding. Yonas
estimated that a third of the 30,000 strong force was killed — tossed into a
natural pit outside the city believed to hold thousands of bodies.
"They
said they put them in the hole so they would not make the land unclean,"
Yonas said.
His
youngest child was born July 3, 2014, a day before IS leader Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi mounted a dais in a Mosul mosque and gave a sermon demanding
Muslims obey him as the newly declared "caliph."
Yonas'
wife gave birth at the hospital without him. He did not dare join her.
The
family skipped from relative to relative an estimated 100 times in 2½ years.
"Iraqis
have big families," he said with a wry smile.
The
city's economy suffered a string of blows. The Baghdad government cut off the
flow of money it had been paying civil servants, and airstrikes cut into
Islamic State's oil revenue and cash reserves. The infrastructure and services
initially provided by the group broke down. Electricity cuts forced people to
rely on oil lamps. Communications were cut off, although people still managed
to make periodic, hushed calls to Alghan FM, a radio station founded by an
exiled Mosul resident that has become a sounding board to those trapped in the
city.
"Four
months ago, satellite television went down. Six months ago, it was the
internet," said the station's founder, who asked to be identified only by
his first name, Mohammed, for his safety. IS "wanted people to be isolated
completely."
IS
enforcers cowed entire neighborhoods by forcing people to watch as they hacked
off hands and lashed, beheaded or stoned offenders.
Hamid,
one of the residents of the Samah neighborhood who witnessed the stoning, said
her 39-year-old son suffers from severe psychological problems and ran afoul of
Islamic State when he wandered from home one evening. They accused him of being
drunk, clubbed him with a gun and took him away. In detention, they beat him
more. Finally the family found out where he was being held and brought him
home.
"Only
his eyes were untouched. Everything else was bruised. And he became like a
parrot, just repeating what we would say," she said.
Residents
said IS fighters herded people into Mosul's central market nearly every week
for public punishments. "They forced all of us to watch," said Raad,
the 26-year-old, speaking in the Hassan Sham camp midway between Mosul and
Irbil where he and many of his neighbors have ended up.
With
the militants digging in as they lost territory elsewhere, Mosul's residents
saw food supplies dwindle until onions and bread were all that was left. Prices
that had been kept stable began to spiral. With food in short supply and jobs
even scarcer, people started selling anything of value to anyone willing to
buy.
Khodr
Ahmed sold his car for $400 dollars. But as that money ran out, he sent his
young boys Bashir and Mushal out to hunt for scrap metal.
As
they scrounged, 9-year-old Bashir picked up what turned out to be an abandoned
IS explosive. It blew off his hand and gouged a hole in his 10-year-old
brother's shin.
"Poverty
and hunger caused all of this," said Ahmed. And the poverty and hunger, he
said, were caused by IS. "For them, they were living the good life. They
had food to eat, but because we did not join, there was nothing for us."
Their
neighbor was among those to reap the rewards of joining, the Ahmeds said. That
family got a car and never wanted for food or electricity. But Khodriya,
Ahmed's wife, said her refusal to fully accept IS rules for women earned her a
death threat from the same neighbor — one he never had the chance to carry out.
In
recent weeks, to further seal off Mosul's people from the world outside,
Islamic State took to hanging people from street lights in residential
neighborhoods, according to two men who fled Mosul, speaking on condition they
not be named to protect their families. Most of the dead were caught using
mobile phones, an act considered spying.
Still,
people within Mosul find ways to communicate, if only briefly.
Saif,
a man from the Zahra neighborhood, said his family inside the city managed to
send quick texts to say they are safe. He spoke using only his first name to
protect his relatives.
Mustapha,
the former prison guard, was among those to keep his cell phone. He wrapped it
in plastic and buried it in the garden, making only brief phone calls. One of
his sons lives in Irbil. They have not seen each other since IS took over,
although the two cities were, in better days, just an hour apart by car.
Mustapha
now is unsure he would ever want to return home.
"Mosul
is like a forest with hidden monsters," he said, but he knows everyone who
joined the Islamic State. "I can remember everything."
AP
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