On Sunday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi traveled to the battle-hardened city of Mosul, where the Iraqi military has been waging a nine month-long battle against Islamic State hold-outs, to officially declare victory over ISIS. Liberating east Mosul first, Iraqi troops, backed by American air power, moved into the strategically-challenging battlefield of west Mosul with cautious optimism. After a momentous victory in Ramadi, the Iraqi military knew that Mosul would be different; the battle would be far bloodier, as ISIS militants planned on employing Palestinian Hamas-style guerrilla tactics against the incoming military onslaught. Using the people of Mosul as human shields, ISIS forced Iraqi troops to go house-by-house and root out the IS fighters making a last stand in what was once the terror group’s de facto capital in Iraq.
In the months following the Iraqi military’s initial advance into the western portion of the city, thousands of militants, troops, and civilians were killed. A million more Iraqis were displaced.
Although bursts of gunfire could still be heard at the far reaches of jihadist-infested neighborhoods, the Iraqi government considers the battle for the city officially over. Small pockets of resistance still prevail, but any meaningful jihadist opposition has been eliminated.
In an attempt to portray strength, the Iraqi prime minister arrived in Mosul wearing black military fatigues. He greeted field commanders with a sense of resolve not seen since he first announced operations to liberate Mosul nearly nine months ago.
PM Abadi arrives in #Mosul to congratulate security forces and Iraqi people on their victory over #ISIS in the city. https://t.co/aWrNcc89QD
— Brett McGurk (@brett_mcgurk) July 9, 2017
PM Al-Abadi arrives in Mosul to announce its liberation and congratulate the armed forces and Iraqi people on this victory pic.twitter.com/bUtkj7z88A
— Haider Al-Abadi (@HaiderAlAbadi) July 9, 2017
But the Iraqi government’s staged photo-ops don’t tell the entire story. Behind closed doors, Abadi continues to meet his cabinet to devise a post-ISIS game plan to rebuild the fallen city.
As The Washington Post’s Louisa Loveluck explains, years of ISIS control followed by months of heavy battle have changed the face of Mosul. The city is unrecognizable, a devastated ghost town that has witnessed every horror imaginable.
Mosul’s Old City is devastated. Stench of bodies fills air in bursts as you walk, arm of what must have been a child hangs from the ruins.
— Louisa Loveluck (@leloveluck) July 9, 2017
The road to rebuild Mosul will be long. Aside from the threat of ISIS sleeper cells, booby traps, and leftover IEDs, competing foreign interests, including Iranian-backed Shiite militias, will continue an influence campaign to pull Baghdad away from the United States. So far, it’s been working.
Disgruntled Sunni tribesman are already taking issue with the presence of Shiite PMU forces in their territory. Human rights organizations have been documenting war crimes carried out by Shiite militias against Sunni civilians deliberately mislabeled as ISIS.
Under the Trump administration, it’s unclear what role the United States will have in promoting democracy in Iraq, but retreating from the battlefield and pulling out military advisors, as the Obama administration had done, is sure to strengthen Iran’s hand.
While glimpses of hope are beginning to reappear in the unlikeliest of places, in neighborhoods and villages where ISIS fighters were only recently selling women into sexual slavery, throwing gay men off of ten-story buildings, and infecting the minds of young Iraqis with the ideological poison of jihad, Iraq is still a country in shambles. Mosul may be the starkest example of ISIS’ dystopian hell, but all throughout the country, the trauma of war has left an indelible mark in the minds of everyday Iraqis. With sectarian violence still threatening unity, Baghdad not only needs to rebuild the country’s basic political infrastructure, but it needs to do so while putting in place the defense mechanisms to prevent another all-out jihadist imperialist assault.