Two years under the shadow of ISIS’ sword
By Ferman Abdulrahman
MOSUL, Iraq – There was a dead ISIS body handing from an electric power post across the street. The body had decomposed into a skeleton with the passage of time. It was a terrifying scene.
The street that bisects the left bank of the city is filled with burnt out vehicles and riddled with large holes.
These scenes are the legacy of the more than two-year rule of ISIS in eastern Mosul.
Life appears to be normal on the surface. People are seen busy with their daily routines. However, they are still haunted by the traumatic legacy of ISIS. They are concerned about the situation in the city.
“They took us back to how life was 1,000 years ago,” said Abu Yahya, a man with a white beard standing in the sunshine in front of a café. “They destroyed Mosul completely. We will have to pay the price for 100 years for what they did to us.”
I sat with some people in a café in Mosul and showed them ISIS videos in hopes that they could help us locate the places where ISIS had filmed them and learn about the crimes they had perpetrated in the city.
We found some of the locations. I was especially keen to discover the place where a particular video recording had been made.
ISIS circulated video footage on March 31, 2016, in which a Kurdish ISIS member and three captured Peshmerga soldiers appear. The ISIS militant, from eastern (Iranian) Kurdistan, was called Abu Ayesha Kurdi. He had a long beard. In the video, he brutally beheaded one of the Peshmerga captives.
The information we obtained from people in the café led us to Mosul’s left bank neighborhood of Nour where ISIS had committed the crime amid a crowd on a main road. People who had been there on the day were still fearful when they spoke to us about it.
Abu Salman, an elderly man from Nour, was there when the Peshmerga was beheaded.
“It was morning time when a missile landed on the street. There were no casualties,” he recounted.
“On the same day, ISIS militants brought three Peshmerga captives. One of the ISIS militants was wearing Kurdish clothing. He gave a speech, and then beheaded one of the Peshmerga captives. They then removed the blindfold from the other two captives so they could see the body of their colleague. Then, they left the scene. The body of the Peshmerga lay there on the street for five hours.”
There are few main roads on the city’s left bank where ISIS did not commit crimes. In other video footage, ISIS militants threw someone off a high building. Then they stoned him. This happened in Jazayer neighborhood.
We went to there to talk with locals about what they remembered of that day.
“The person they dropped was a young man called Marwan, who was from Qahira district. He didn’t die immediately after he was dropped off the building. Hence, ISIS militants stoned him, then opened fired at him,” one of the eyewitnesses of the crime, Omar Akram, said.
On most Mosul streets, pictures hanging on the walls of shops have been blackened. ISIS militants regarded them as haram, sinful. Images of bloodshed were, however, normal for ISIS. They spread around pictures of different methods of killing.
Drawing is one of Abdulrahman Rasam’s hobbies. After ISIS was forced out of this part of the city, he started decorating Mosul’s streets with his drawings. Practicing this art would merit severe punishment under ISIS. Rasam was lashed twice for drawing. His brother was shot by ISIS.
“I was drawing secretly at home. One day, I told the director of artistic activities in the local education office that I continued drawing. I didn’t know that he had become an ISIS affiliate. He reported me to them who then lashed me,” Rasam said.
Faysalya neighborhood’s only theatre hall and conference room is completely devastated. Their chairs are now rubble. ISIS turned the theater hall into a headquarters where they also made explosives. It was flattened by coalition airstrikes.
Instead of using playgrounds for sporting activities, ISIS carried out stonings there.
In Jazayer neighborhood, there is a playground in which no sporting activities were held during ISIS rule. Local people said that they witnessed a number of cases of stoning in the playground.
“One day, they brought a woman whose face was covered. They used loud speakers calling on the neighborhood people to gather. They gave a speech. They insulted the woman by stoning her. Then, they took her dead body in a vehicle and left,” said Shakir Mohammed, a resident of Jazayer district who had witnessed several such incidents.
The rocks used to stone her were still there when we visited the place.
ISIS also prevented athletes from playing sports. Ali Mahmud was a judo trainer in Mosul. He could not do any coaching until ISIS was expelled.
“Sports activities were prohibited and counted as deeds of the devil. Only the art of defense was allowed, providing that it was administered by ISIS,” Mahmud said.
“ISIS closed down my sports hall and didn’t allow me to train because I didn’t join them,” he added.
The legacy of ISIS codes of conduct and dress code for women can still be seen in some Mosul buildings. They wanted to imprison women of the city for more than two years.
Seeing a number of young women along with some men cleaning the city is a sign of a new beginning of life in Mosul. Under ISIS, even wearing colourful clothes was punishable.
“In the past, our life comprised of only eating, drinking, and sleeping. We didn’t dare to go out of our homes. There was no schooling, nor visiting, or going out. However, ISIS couldn’t change our culture. Despite all this pressure and oppression, we come out and take part in cleaning our city,” Nirman Mustafa, an 18-year-old girl, said.
There are countless tragic stories in Mosul. Now that ISIS’ violent rule in this part of the city is over, people have started to live a normal life again. However, the legacy of this violent group will not disappear easily.
MOSUL, Iraq – There was a dead ISIS body handing from an electric power post across the street. The body had decomposed into a skeleton with the passage of time. It was a terrifying scene.
The street that bisects the left bank of the city is filled with burnt out vehicles and riddled with large holes.
These scenes are the legacy of the more than two-year rule of ISIS in eastern Mosul.
Life appears to be normal on the surface. People are seen busy with their daily routines. However, they are still haunted by the traumatic legacy of ISIS. They are concerned about the situation in the city.
“They took us back to how life was 1,000 years ago,” said Abu Yahya, a man with a white beard standing in the sunshine in front of a café. “They destroyed Mosul completely. We will have to pay the price for 100 years for what they did to us.”
I sat with some people in a café in Mosul and showed them ISIS videos in hopes that they could help us locate the places where ISIS had filmed them and learn about the crimes they had perpetrated in the city.
We found some of the locations. I was especially keen to discover the place where a particular video recording had been made.
ISIS circulated video footage on March 31, 2016, in which a Kurdish ISIS member and three captured Peshmerga soldiers appear. The ISIS militant, from eastern (Iranian) Kurdistan, was called Abu Ayesha Kurdi. He had a long beard. In the video, he brutally beheaded one of the Peshmerga captives.
The information we obtained from people in the café led us to Mosul’s left bank neighborhood of Nour where ISIS had committed the crime amid a crowd on a main road. People who had been there on the day were still fearful when they spoke to us about it.
Abu Salman, an elderly man from Nour, was there when the Peshmerga was beheaded.
“It was morning time when a missile landed on the street. There were no casualties,” he recounted.
“On the same day, ISIS militants brought three Peshmerga captives. One of the ISIS militants was wearing Kurdish clothing. He gave a speech, and then beheaded one of the Peshmerga captives. They then removed the blindfold from the other two captives so they could see the body of their colleague. Then, they left the scene. The body of the Peshmerga lay there on the street for five hours.”
There are few main roads on the city’s left bank where ISIS did not commit crimes. In other video footage, ISIS militants threw someone off a high building. Then they stoned him. This happened in Jazayer neighborhood.
We went to there to talk with locals about what they remembered of that day.
“The person they dropped was a young man called Marwan, who was from Qahira district. He didn’t die immediately after he was dropped off the building. Hence, ISIS militants stoned him, then opened fired at him,” one of the eyewitnesses of the crime, Omar Akram, said.
On most Mosul streets, pictures hanging on the walls of shops have been blackened. ISIS militants regarded them as haram, sinful. Images of bloodshed were, however, normal for ISIS. They spread around pictures of different methods of killing.
Drawing is one of Abdulrahman Rasam’s hobbies. After ISIS was forced out of this part of the city, he started decorating Mosul’s streets with his drawings. Practicing this art would merit severe punishment under ISIS. Rasam was lashed twice for drawing. His brother was shot by ISIS.
“I was drawing secretly at home. One day, I told the director of artistic activities in the local education office that I continued drawing. I didn’t know that he had become an ISIS affiliate. He reported me to them who then lashed me,” Rasam said.
Faysalya neighborhood’s only theatre hall and conference room is completely devastated. Their chairs are now rubble. ISIS turned the theater hall into a headquarters where they also made explosives. It was flattened by coalition airstrikes.
Instead of using playgrounds for sporting activities, ISIS carried out stonings there.
In Jazayer neighborhood, there is a playground in which no sporting activities were held during ISIS rule. Local people said that they witnessed a number of cases of stoning in the playground.
“One day, they brought a woman whose face was covered. They used loud speakers calling on the neighborhood people to gather. They gave a speech. They insulted the woman by stoning her. Then, they took her dead body in a vehicle and left,” said Shakir Mohammed, a resident of Jazayer district who had witnessed several such incidents.
The rocks used to stone her were still there when we visited the place.
ISIS also prevented athletes from playing sports. Ali Mahmud was a judo trainer in Mosul. He could not do any coaching until ISIS was expelled.
“Sports activities were prohibited and counted as deeds of the devil. Only the art of defense was allowed, providing that it was administered by ISIS,” Mahmud said.
“ISIS closed down my sports hall and didn’t allow me to train because I didn’t join them,” he added.
The legacy of ISIS codes of conduct and dress code for women can still be seen in some Mosul buildings. They wanted to imprison women of the city for more than two years.
Seeing a number of young women along with some men cleaning the city is a sign of a new beginning of life in Mosul. Under ISIS, even wearing colourful clothes was punishable.
“In the past, our life comprised of only eating, drinking, and sleeping. We didn’t dare to go out of our homes. There was no schooling, nor visiting, or going out. However, ISIS couldn’t change our culture. Despite all this pressure and oppression, we come out and take part in cleaning our city,” Nirman Mustafa, an 18-year-old girl, said.
There are countless tragic stories in Mosul. Now that ISIS’ violent rule in this part of the city is over, people have started to live a normal life again. However, the legacy of this violent group will not disappear easily.