PHOTO: Islamic State parade in Mosul, Iraq, June 25, 2014

Joanna Paraszczuk writes for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty:


Hung precariously on otherwise empty scaffolding above a dingy market stall in Mosul’s Bab al-Tob neighborhood, the message of the Islamic State (IS) poster belies its surroundings.

“Mosul city is prospering under the caliphate!” it reads.

But for Mosul Eye, a local historian who has been secretly documenting IS’s activities in Mosul since the militants overran the city almost exactly a year ago, and who shared a photo of the poster on Facebook this week, such IS propaganda is an insult.

“The pictures talk for themselves — what kind if prosperity ISIL is spreading; the prosperity of death and destruction culture,” wrote Mosul Eye.

Establishing Control

With the first anniversary of IS’s capture of Mosul rapidly approaching, the city of more than 1 million remains a stronghold, and plans to recapture it have stalled.

Analysts and activists warn that these delays are allowing IS to entrench its “death-and-destruction” culture in what was once known as the Pearl of the North.

The longer the operation to liberate Mosul is delayed, the more psychological advantages IS gains over the city’s populace, says Shakir al-Bayati, chief editor of the Nineveh Reporters Network, a group of journalists originally from Mosul.

Since IS overran the city on June 10, 2014, Mosul’s residents have been cut off from the rest of Iraq and subjected to the militant group’s “huge propaganda machine”, Bayati says.

IS backs up all its rulings with extensive quotations from the Koran and the Hadith, the collections of the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. As a result, some people in Mosul have begun to ask whether IS could be correct after all in its religious interpretations.

“They are winning over the streets,” Bayati says. “Some say that they have begun to wonder: Is IS the true outlook? Were we wrong before?”

Hisham al-Hashimi, an advisor to the Iraqi government who is widely considered to be Iraq’s leading expert on IS, says their “enforced coexistence with IS” could result in Mosul residents being attracted to the group’s extremist interpretations of Islam.

“Especially if they feel abandoned by the international community and their own government,” Hashimi adds. “Those living under IS rule are at best neutral, and at worst supporters of IS.”

Erasing Culture

One of the methods IS has reportedly used to impose its rule on Mosul is to get rid of the cultural symbols that connect the city to its pre-IS past.

While IS’s destruction of priceless artifacts in Mosul’s museums has been well-documented, the gunmen have also destroyed modern items that they say are not Islamic.

Photographs shared by Mosul Eye appear to show that militants have destroyed or disfigured symbols of the lamassu, an Assyrian protective deity often depicted as a winged bull, that had adorned two of the city’s bridges. The lamassu were not ancient, but they had a symbolic value because they represented an element of Mosul’s cultural history.

“[IS] is literally erasing everything that is this city,” Mosul Eye lamented.

As it erases Mosul’s culture and way of life, IS has attempted to establish its own cultural and societal norms, based on its extremist interpretation of Sunni Islam.

The militant group has put in place an array of laws that govern how Mosul residents must dress and when, or if, they can leave their homes.

IS has issued orders banning women from leaving their homes during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins on June 17, according to Bayati. Under the new rules, all women, even the elderly and those who are about to give birth, will have to stay inside until after the iftar, the fast-breaking evening meal.

And after June 1, all males over the age of 15 will have to grow their beards, a move that Bayati believes is a “precautionary step” that will ensure all Mosul’s men look alike in the event of an attempt to liberate the city.

Encouraging Foreign Fighters to Settle

Another major change that IS has introduced is to encourage foreign militants to settle in Mosul and for local women and girls to marry them.

IS provides housing for foreign militants in homes belonging to Christian, Yezidi, Shabak, and Turkmen families who fled Mosul a year ago.

“The foreign immigrants receive preferential treatment in every way,” says Bayati.

Some of the female foreign militants are reportedly tasked with finding wives for their male counterparts.

Mosul Eye reports that one of these is a 36-year-old Uzbek woman who joined her IS militant husband and two children in Mosul. The Uzbek is a member of the all-female Al-Khansaa battalion, which operates mostly in the Al-Noor and Al-Muhandisen neighborhoods and which is mainly tasked with convincing girls and women to marry militants.

The women are usually seen out in groups between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m., according to Mosul Eye.

A similar group with the same name is reported to operate out of Raqqa, IS’s de facto capital in Syria.

Marrying Mosul women to foreign militants appears to be part of a strategy to embed IS fighters in the social fabric of the Iraqi city.

Iraqi government adviser Hashimi says that by marrying local women, foreign IS militants “become immersed in that society and coexist within it.”

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