East Mosul’s street lights have been restored six months
after section was liberated (Baghdad Post)
The Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) were sweeping west Mosul,
while the Islamic State carried out two attacks. First, four policemen were killed
in a shooting by insurgents in a market in the west side of the city. Another
police officer and an intelligence agents lost their lives to the militants in
the east. Six IS members were arrested
near the Mosul airport in the southwest carrying weapons and suicide belts. Azzaman reported that IS elements
were still in Shahawan and Qalahat in the Old City, and gunfire could be heard
in sections of the city, especially at night. A spokesman for the Ninewa
Council told
the press that IS elements were still in tunnels in the in west, but that they
would be cleared out in a few days. The Federal Police claimed they had gone through 80%
of West Mosul. The Golden Division is also doing sweeps so it is unclear
whether the 80% figure was just for the police or all the ISF. There have not
been any stories of combat in the city for several days now. There are
occasional terrorist attacks and shootings however, and always stories of
arrests. Those show that IS has cells operating throughout the city. Luckily,
their operations are sporadic. Whether they increase, decrease, or stay at the
same rate in the coming weeks and months will be a good sign of the strength of
IS within Mosul.
One big problem with security inside Mosul and Ninewa in
general is that there are not
enough police, requiring roughly thirty different security forces to
protect the governorate instead. A parliamentarian from Ninewa called
on the prime minister to return all the dismissed police to Ninewa province. Before
2014, Mosul had 15,000 police and Ninewa had around 32,000 in total. Only a
fraction of those on their job today. The province has asked Baghdad before to
bring back all these officers before, but it hasn’t. The shortage is in part
due to poor capacity within the Iraqi government and lack of planning by the
authorities. The government is infamously slow with most matters, and it has
never even responded to Ninewa about whether it would re-instate the police
force or not. The decision to attack Mosul was also done for political reasons
because the premier wanted to take it before the end of 2016. That means there
was little to no time for post-IS planning. This has happened in many other
parts of the country that have been liberated from the Islamic State as all the
emphasis has been on military matters with the political side being left to
some underdetermined time.
The Iraqi forces are ready to move on Tal Afar in western
Ninewa. Prime Minister Haidar Abadi said
that plans were ready for the operation. The ISF is building up forces in Badush
in preparation for the assault, which should come in days. The Defense Ministry
claimed the campaign has already started with airstrikes. Tal Afar is one of
the last areas of Iraq still under insurgent control, and has been surrounded
for months.
NPR
and NINA
reported on the Civil Defense teams working in Mosul. The Civil Defense units
are responsible for clearing rubble, rescuing trapped people, and recovering
dead bodies. Every morning, people line up at their offices to tell them where
they think their relatives’ corpses are located, and teams are sent out to
attempt to locate them. So far, they have found more than 1,000 just in west
Mosul. On July 24, they found 97 in the Old City’s Qalahat neighborhood. Like
many public employees in Mosul, these workers are doing their job without pay.
They have not received salaries for three years. Baghdad is cash strapped due
to low oil prices, and civil servants in Ninewa have suffered as a result.
Al
Monitor provided more information on the two-week long battle to recapture
Imam al-Gharbi southeast of Mosul. On the night of July 4, around 160 IS
fighters attacked
four villages in the Qayara district, seizing Imam al-Gharbi from a local
tribal Hashd unit. Most of the insurgents kidnapped a group of locals and
headed for Hawija in Kirkuk, leaving behind a small holding force of 40-50 men.
They held a three and a half kilometer area. Units from the army’s 9th
Division, Rapid Reaction forces from Salahaddin, and elements of the Golden
Division were all sent in to re-take the town, supported by helicopters and eventually
Coalition air strikes. They claimed to have cleared it several times, when it
wasn’t, and initially denied that the town had been taken to begin with. Finally,
on July 20 the village was freed. Half the IS members were able to escape to
the sections of Shirqat district in Salahaddin still under its control. After
the huge victory in Mosul, this was a black eye for the Iraqi forces. The fact
that such a small force of militants was able to hold up four different ISF
units for such a long period of time reflected poorly on their capabilities.
This was not some small isolated town either, as the insurgents were able to
cut the Shirqat-Qayara road, and were able to semi-surround the nearby Qayara
air base, which is the main transportation and logistics hub in Ninewa, and
houses U.S. forces. That’s the reason why the Iraqis tried to play down the
fight the entire time.
There were more stories on the stark contrasts between east
and west Mosul. In the east, things are moving quickly. Life is largely back to
normal, although there are still difficulties. Services are largely restored,
shops and schools
are open. Street lights for example,
have just been turned back on. The west on the other hand is largely destroyed.
A team from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the main
displaced agency in Iraq that works with the Displacement Ministry and United
Nations, did a survey of the western section. There are still destroyed cars
blocking streets, craters from shelling and IEDs, and homes destroyed. The U.N.
estimated that of 54 residential areas in the west, 15 were completely
destroyed with nearly 32,000 houses damaged. 23 other neighborhoods were
moderately damaged with almost half the buildings destroyed. The remaining 16
were lightly damaged, but that still meant nearly 16,000 buildings were
effected. All five bridges across the Tigris River are destroyed. The medical
district in the Shifa neighborhood along the river, which was the main health
center for the entire province is 80% destroyed. The U.N. Humanitarian Response
Plan for Iraq estimated that Mosul might be the largest operation in the world
in 2017. The Iraqi government plans on paying for most of the reconstruction
from foreign donors via aid, grants, and loans. That will be a steep order as
aid groups have been underfunded in the country for years. The U.N. asked for
$985 million for its humanitarian operations in Iraq in 2017, and has only
received $440 million so far. The IOM requested $28.83 million for Mosul
started last year, and has only gotten around 33% of that amount. Baghdad can
probably expect similar shortfalls. Germany
just announced it would donate another $117 million to help with Mosul. So far
Iraq has been pledged in total, around $300 million. The bills for the city
alone could top $1 billion.
SOURCES
Arraf, Jane, “Iraqi Civil Defense Workers Recover The Dead
From Mosul Battles,” NPR, 7/25/17
Azzaman, “The Iraqi army is mobilizing in the vicinity of
Tal Afar and clearing the right bank of Mosul in the last quarter,” 7/25/17
Baghdad Post, “Germany raises aid to Mosul by 100 million
euros,” 7/25/17
- “Photos: Street lighting system restored in Mosul,”
7/25/17
Euronews, “Women shed the veil in post Islamic State Mosul,”
7/25/17
International Organization for Migration, “UN Migration
Agency: With Mosul Retaken, Donor Support Now Paramount for Thousands of IDPs,”
7/25/17
Iraq
Newspaper, "Al-Iraq Reporter In Mosul: Terrorists Assassinated An Officer
And An Intelligence Officer In The Palestine Area Of The Left Bank,"
7/25/17
- “Al-Iraq Reporter In Mosul: The Terrorists Are Still In
The Right Bank,” 7/25/17
Kittleson, Shelly, “Iraqi forces keep up fight for strategic
areas south of Mosul,” Al Monitor, 7/24/17
Kotan, Bilge Nesibe, “Why is Tal Afar the Iraqi army’s next
target?” TRT World, 7/25/17
Al
Mada, “Daash exploited the liberation of Mosul and occupied a village south
Qayara a week ago,” 7/13/17
-
“Ninewa is perplexed by 30 tribal groups holding liberated lands,” 7/21/17
Markham, Melany, “Five things you should know about Mosul,”
Norwegian Refugee Council, 7/25/17
Mostafa, Mohamed, “Abadi: plan ready for Tal Afar invasion,
foreign militants to face justice,” Iraqi News, 7/25/17
- “Police arrest 6 Islamic State militants near Mosul
airport,” Iraqi News, 7/25/17
New Sabah, “Call to fight Daash thought in conjunction with
the reconstruction of Mosul,” 7/25/17
NINA, “Security Source: 97 Bodies Of Civilians Recovered By
Civil Defense Killed By Daesh In The Center Of Mosul,” 7/24/17
Al Noor News, “Four policemen killed in Mosul market,”
7/25/17
Al Rafidain, “Government Forces Are Mobilizing On The
Outskirts Of Tal Afar District Of Ninewa Province In Preparation For Retaking
It,” 7/25/17
Snell, James, “Iraq’s great victory in Mosul is being
undermined,” 7/25/17
Al Taghier TV, “MP Mahasen Mahmoud appeals to the Prime
Minister to return the dismissed officers of the Interior Ministry in Ninewa to
service,” 7/25/17
Their World, “60,000 children back at school in west Mosul
but others are traumatized and hiding,” 7/25/17
Watan News, “Federal police announced clearing 80% of areas
of West Mosul,” 7/25/17
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