Wednesday, May 11, 2016

The distructive liberation

Every day , we wake to news about the libration of Iraqi lands occupied by ISIS and the heavy fighting between the latter and the iraqi army helped by sectarian shiite militia known as “hashid shaaby” supervised by coaliation forces. Evidently the term “ liberation “ seems to be a glorious victory that brings back peace to the people there, but the reality appears to be different . It is just a massive destruction that turn the cities to uninhabitable scraps .
Since April , 2015 ,Tikrit ( a city located 140 km northwest to Baghdad , 220  km southeast to Mosul) was regaind from islamic state fighters after fierce fighting which forced 28,000 civilians to fled out of the city . Regaining Tikrit gave some hope to the displaced people to return back to their homes , but everyone was shocked by retributive vandalism carried out by shia militia groups who took the control on the city and started to burn , destroy and steal the property of the fleet people. After a year from liberating Tikrit , the people, who fled to kurdistan in the north,  are between the hammer and the anvil for being afraid to return to their homes and bearing the harassement of Kurdistan government who tries to compel them to leave kurdistan by refusing the renewal of their residency permission. Targeting unarmed civilians continued in Al Muqdadyiah ( province of Dyalah ) under the pretention of fighting terrorism. 

The government tried to improve it’s public image in Ramadi (108 km west to Baghdad ) as it relied largely on official iraqi armed forces together with  the armed tribes and the coaliation air strikes while constricting the role of “Hashid” militia which incensed Shiites as they consider it a depreciation to them . Again the government mass media tried to glorify the victory , but Ramadi liberation was synonymous with that of Tikrit. Ramadi now is a wild city with completely destructed infra structures , the government reports estimated that about 80% of the city is completely broken up ,  Besides the sleeper cells that come between any chances to bring peace to the city .

The big challenge now is “ Mosul “ ،The second largest city in Iraq with 2 millions people trapped there under the role of ISIS . As opposed to the tribal society of Ramady and to some degree of Tikrit , cultured society of Mosul make things more complicated in terms of arming the tribes belong to the city which in some way was helpful in Ramadi.

Mosul is considered as the stronghold of ISIS fighters and one of the most important resource for them , As a result they won’t give up easily and they will fight desperately in order to keep the city under their control taking the advantage of the high popular density and using them as human shields . The government seems to temporize taking serious steps in liberation of Mosul as well as it insist on participating “ Hashid “ militia despite the troubles they made in Tikrit and other cities. All the factors mentioned above make the liberation of the city more difficult and more complicated which mean that the city may undergo  more massive destruction and shedding a lot of blood in comparision of other cities.
Iraq in general is walking toward the abyss , the government is helpless and have lost a considerable parts of Iraq and hand them over to the strangers . the politicians are busy in filling their pockets and don’t care about the people outside their castles .
Iraq really needs a miracle to survive this period which is the worst period in it’s history.