Civil Resistance in Mosul

 

 

 

 

Introduction

The three years of ISIS control over Mosul caused the city’s residents tremendous pain and suffering. Even today, the scars inflicted by ISIS are apparent in the daily lives and conversations of the local community. They are also visible in the streets, from which the rubble of destroyed buildings is yet to be removed.

Between capturing the city in the summer of 2014 and its withdrawal late in 2017, ISIS committed countless violations, including imposing curbs on public life and personal freedoms, arbitrary detentions, torture, assassinations, and brutal executions both in public and in secret. Reports by international organizations estimate that tens of thousands of civilians were killed by ISIS and another 8,000 went missing, in addition to the destruction of hundreds of homes and cultural monuments. A large part of the violence was aimed at the people who opposed ISIS.

The Mosul residents’ strong attachment to their identity was tangible in the interviews conducted in order to write this report. It is present in their conversations and memories. When societies with great civilizational depth face an ideological assault, the preservation of their cultural identity becomes a priority. Cultural identity plays a vital role in ensuring social cohesion and improves people’s understanding of who they are.

The residents of Mosul showed their opposition to ISIS in various ways – they resisted its ideology, laws, and violence. ISIS wanted to detach Mosul’s society from its identity and specific characteristics that had been formed over hundreds of years. Therefore, the most significant part of the resistance was not the armed struggle, but the defense of cultural identity.

This investigation aims to study the forms of civil resistance against ISIS during its control of Mosul. It hopes to build a fuller picture of that period, about which thousands of rights reports and investigations have been published tackling the various aspects of ISIS violence.

It is worth noting that the author of this investigation is a native of Mosul who lived through the ISIS era. To conduct this investigation he returned to Mosul, sat down with its residents, and talked to witnesses in the areas that, ten years previously, had been ruled by ISIS, and had faced continual bombardment. Specifically, he conducted 18 in-person interviews.

The first part of this report describes Mosul in the decade before ISIS captured the city. It highlights the milieu in which people lived and the factors that troubled the city. It then recounts the events that culminated in ISIS capturing the city early in June 2014.

The second part examines several examples of resistance by the residents of Mosul who rejected ISIS rule. It also investigates some of the cruel practices of ISIS.

The civil resistance described in this report, like the examples of human rights violations perpetrated by ISIS, represents a small sample of what happened in the three years of ISIS rule. Hundreds of stories of rebellion and resistance to ISIS were silenced in mass graves. This represents a bleak memory that many residents of Mosul do not wish to revisit.

 The Rise of ISIS and Fall of Mosul

In 2014, ISIS took control of Fallujah, other areas of Anbar province, and Tikrit, in the center of Salah al-Din province. In addition to these areas in Iraq, it captured Raqqa in Syria, and made inroads into parts of Aleppo, Deir ez-Zor, Homs, and other Syrian regions. The group reached the peak of its geographical expansion when it captured Mosul in June 2014.

Embers under the Ashes

Life in Mosul may have seemed normal before June 2014, but in reality most residents were worried and confused. They closely followed the news about attacks by armed groups against police and military points in the city. The population was frustrated by the sectarian acts of the security and military authorities that had risen to power following the US invasion of 2003.

Many demonstrations were held against the new Iraqi authorities, especially after the increasing number of arrests by the security forces and residents’ displeasure at the sectarian tensions that plagued Iraq.

According to witnesses interviewed for this investigation, it was common at the time for security forces to conduct dawn raids on homes in search of weapons, even licensed ones. When arms were found, they were confiscated and their owners were arrested under Article 4 of the Anti-Terrorism Law issued by the Iraqi National Assembly in 2005. The law stipulates that, “Anyone who committed, as a main perpetrator or a participant, any of the terrorist acts stated in the second and third articles of this law, shall be sentenced to death. A person who incites, plans, finances, or assists terrorists to commit the crimes stated in this law shall face the same penalty as the main perpetrator.” It also stipulates that, “Any person who intentionally covers up any terrorist act or harbors a terrorist with the purpose of concealment shall be sentenced to life imprisonment.”

Dozens of residents of the province of Nineveh were arrested and imprisoned under this law in the years before the rise of ISIS. They were abused in government prisons, and Mosul residents became apprehensive of the increasing number of checkpoints throughout the city as a result.

One Mosul resident, Khalil Sabri, told the ISIS Prisons Museum (IPM) that, “The security checkpoints were a source of verbal sectarian abuse that was often hurled at us by the security and military personnel. Often the abuse was done deliberately when a person was accompanied by his wife and children, and if he showed disapproval, he might receive worse verbal and physical abuse. That’s why everybody refrained from showing any reaction that might bother the security agent checking his ID, for fear of further humiliation.”

The tensions reached their peak between 2006 and 2008, and in that context the presence of the Iraqi authorities diminished. The security forces’ control did not extend beyond the Dawwasa area, on the right side of the city, where the Nineveh province building, the provincial council building, the police directorate, and the courts complex were located.

In December 2012, resentment against the security forces worsened after a soldier raped an underage girl. People gathered in front of the al-Imam al-Azam faculty to demand the expulsion of the security forces from Mosul. The protests escalated and were met by police violence. Some protestors were shot dead, drawing condemnation from human rights groups.

At the same time, armed groups increased the frequency of their attacks against government forces in Mosul. On April 25, 2013, a curfew was imposed after an ISIS attack on police and military bases in the 17 Tammuz and al-Rifai areas.

By early 2014, ISIS had taken control of some districts and neighborhoods in Nineveh province, such as al-Ba’aj, Tal Abta, al-Mahlabiya, al-Qayyara, and other areas in western and southern Mosul.

The ISIS strategy was not restricted to carrying out surprise attacks on security and military bases, but also included extorting money from some businesses. This issue was raised by the Nineveh security chief at the time, Major General Ahmad al-Zarkani, during a hearing of the parliamentary committee in February 2015. The committee, based in the capital Baghdad, was investigating the fall of Mosul.

Al-Zarkani mentioned that when he first took charge, in early October 2013, he worked to identify the armed groups active in the province. He explained that the most significant group was the so-called Islamic State in Iraq, which “controlled 100% of Nineveh province” as it was “collecting levies from residents and projects in the province in one way or another.”

On June 5, 2014, ISIS attacked the city of Samarra in Salah al-Din province. This raised fears that a similar attack might be launched against Mosul. As a result, the authorities imposed a curfew that took effect at 1:00 pm of the same day. Within the next five days, the city fell completely under ISIS control.

 

 

June 2014: Stages of the Capture of Mosul

•  June 5

As news spread that armed fighters were gathering in the west of the province, a Nineveh-wide curfew was imposed as a precautionary measure. Residents of the city faced an anxious wait as the sound of gunfire punctuated the heavy silence.

•  June 6 

ISIS members took control of Mosul’s western neighborhoods (al-Harmat, al-Islah al-Zirai, al-Nahrawan, al-Hai al-Sinai, Souq al-Maash, and al-Yarmouk). They barricaded themselves in the alleys and spread out on high rooftops. They informed residents that they should leave their homes. Amid silence from the government media, ISIS shared images on Twitter (now X) showing its vehicles and flags in the city.

• June 7

ISIS consolidated its control of the western neighborhoods and detonated a car bomb at the Um al-Rabiyin police department near the al-Sheikh Fathi police station. This marked the end of any police or military presence in al-Najjar neighborhood.

On this day, the Iraqi military’s assistant chief of staff, Abboud Kanbar, and the commander of land forces, Ali Ghidan, reached Mosul via the airport route. They had come to lead the Nineveh operations. Mortar shells hit the residential areas under ISIS control from the left side of the city. An enormous number of people left their homes. Mosul residents went out onto the streets, offering water, cold drinks, and light meals to those fleeing. They set up make-shift clinics and transported the disabled and elderly.

• June 8

The Nineveh police chief Khaled al-Akidi was sacked and replaced by Khaled al-Hamdani. The military continued bombing the neighborhoods of Tammuz, al-Rifai, al-Najjar, Hawi al-Kanisa, and Mshirfa with artillery and airstrikes. The federal police forces left their positions in the al-Aamil neighborhood, the edges of al-Islah al-Zirai, and Baghdad Street. Squads that formed the backbone of the al-Sadd defense line withdrew and gathered in the bases of the battalions.

As the bombing intensified, more people were displaced. A group of female students was trapped inside the university campus. Many parties cooperated to evacuate them from Mosul to the Nineveh Plain.

Then-Governor of Nineveh Athil al-Najifi called on the residents to organize in local groups. He claimed they would receive weapons to fight against ISIS. However, he stated later that he had not been able to obtain the necessary security approval to arm civilians.

• June 9

The national police withdrew from the neighborhoods behind the al-Sadd defense line (al-Zanjili, Bab Sanjar, al-Sehha, al-Thowra, and Ras al-Jaadda) near the city center. This allowed ISIS fighters to reach important government buildings such as police bases, command centers, banks, and provincial administrative buildings. Next, ISIS blew up a military container near the Mosul Hotel. This ended what was left of the al-Sadd defense line. Governor of Nineveh Athil al-Najifi told the media that unarmed civilians were now “in direct confrontation with terrorism, and the military leadership in the city has no plans.”

By the end of the day, ISIS fighters had reached the central bank, the governorate building, and the Nineveh police headquarters. Another group of ISIS fighters faced no resistance as it moved through the Baghdad intersection toward al-Ghazlani and the Nineveh operations command center. The security forces had already abandoned these areas before ISIS fighters reached them.

Residents from the neighborhoods of al-Dubbat, al-Faisaliyya, and al-Zirai explain how the security forces fled, driving their cars at crazy speeds and firing shots into the air. When their cars broke down, they left them in place and continued to flee on foot.

• June 10

The security forces fled from the right bank of the Euphrates in Mosul to the left bank, and then continued to Talkif in northeastern Nineveh. With the complete collapse of the security forces on the left side of the river, some civilians left their neighborhoods in cars. This had been forbidden when the curfew was imposed. In the early hours of the morning, the streets of Mosul were crowded with a mixture of civilian and military cars fleeing toward the Kurdistan region.

By sunrise, the Iraqi military had no remaining presence in Mosul. Plumes of smoke rose into the sky and black banners flew throughout the city. As the day went on, the residents displaced to the Nineveh Plain and the Kurdistan region were starting to realize the magnitude of the disaster that had befallen their hometowns and cities. Churches, shrines, mosques, wedding halls, and schools were opened to house the displaced.

 

The City Charter

In the early days of its control, ISIS tried to exploit local disapproval of the sectarian practices of the Iraqi authorities. It implemented a series of measures to reassure residents and to earn their trust. ISIS members roamed the streets in their cars, calling through loudspeakers upon government employees to return to their workplaces. Orders were given to reopen bakeries, grocery stores, and other shops. A week after the fall of Mosul, the city’s markets looked almost normal.

ISIS dismantled security checkpoints and opened roads that had been closed for security reasons. A city-wide campaign was launched to clean the streets and squares, repair damaged roads, fix traffic lights, and restore electricity, which had previously cut out for long periods of time. However, this effort did not last.

Khalil, a government employee at the state electricity corporation, says, “It did not take long for the behavior of ISIS members to change. They had no policy for dealing with the residents. They implemented the instructions of a document they called the ‘City Charter.’ They set up checkpoints on major roads, and it was exactly as things had been in the years before the fall of the city.”

The ‘City Charter,’ which ISIS published three days after capturing Mosul, included 16 articles that introduced the ‘social contract’ according to ISIS. It presented ISIS fighters as ‘soldiers of the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham’ and hinted at the policies the group would pursue in governing the city.

The ISIS City Charter

 

The provisions of the document quickly went into effect, leading to gross interference in people’s customs and behavior, the blowing up of cultural monuments that held significance to the city’s residents, and mass arrests of doctors, lawyers, engineers, government employees, police officers, and military personnel.

Many Mosul residents consider July 24, 2014 to be a pivotal date. At dawn that day, ISIS members detonated the shrine of al-Nabi Younus, which was a significant monument in the city. Other monuments were also destroyed, including the shrines of Nabi Shith, Nabi Danial, and Imam Yahya al-Qasem, as well as the Latin Church (known locally as the Saa’a Church), the Mar Touma Church, and the Shamoun al-Safa Church, among others.

 

 Action and Reaction: Civil Resistance to ISIS in Mosul

During its three-year rule, ISIS committed heinous crimes against hundreds of thousands of city residents. It has not been easy during this investigation to discuss what happened with the residents. Many are understandably reluctant to revisit these painful memories. Some also fear that the experience might be repeated as a result of the ongoing political and sectarian tensions in Iraq.

Looking back to those years, it can be argued that ISIS showed signs of its oppressive nature from the very beginning. As residents formed a clear understanding of what ISIS was, a nascent resistance was born and manifested in various ways, both individual and organized, public and secret, peaceful and armed.

In this part of the investigation, we will explore some of these attempts at resistance. Most of them failed, leading to the death of the people behind them. However, despite the brutality of ISIS, residents continued to find ways not only to survive, but to challenge the organization until the last day of its rule.

 

Resistance Brigades

The City Charter, issued by ISIS on June 13, 2014, declared that working with the government or joining the ranks of the Iraq police and military was an act of treason and “apostasy” punishable by death. However, it added, “the door of repentance is open, and there are places dedicated to receiving those who repent.” By allowing repentance, ISIS aimed to keep former police and military personnel under surveillance, or to benefit from their expertise to strengthen the group’s security and military forces in preparation for the establishment of the “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq. This was clear in the first speech of the then-ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, which he gave at the Nouri Mosque in Mosul on June 5, 2015. He declared himself the caliph of the Muslims, demanded obedience from the population, and threatened those who did not accept ISIS rule.

Describing the predicament of security and military personnel at the beginning of ISIS rule in Mosul, Hamza Yassin, a former sergeant in the Iraqi Army, says, “Repentance centers were set up in several mosques in Mosul, such as the Omar al-Aswad Mosque in the Shahr Souq area in the Old City. We, the security and military personnel, had to go to those centers and fill in a form for this purpose, and everyone had to hand over their weapons. These centers received many officers from the army, police, and security service.”

Declaring their repentance did not save them, however. ISIS reneged on its promise to guarantee their safety after attacks targeted its members. In September 2014, the Arabic letter م (mim) – the first letter of the Arabic word for “resistance” – started to appear on city walls in reference to the resistance against ISIS. This suggested that some form of resistance had been organized and had begun to act.

The IPM interviewed S. A., a member of a resistance cell who was a former sergeant in the Iraqi Army. Unlike other members of the cell, he managed to hide and successfully evade arrest.

S. A. says, “We were responsible for writing the letter م on the walls. We tried to confuse ISIS and spread fear among its members. We wanted to send a message to our fellow citizens in Nineveh and give them a reason to cling to hope.” He continues, “However, due to the brutal tactics of ISIS, it was able to obtain the names and addresses of 14 former officers who were part of the resistance cell. They were arrested and charged with apostasy and spying for the security services in Baghdad.”

In the ISIS security prisons, the fate of those who were accused of apostasy or spying was death or disappearance. That is what happened to a brother of one of the witnesses we interviewed. (For security reasons, the names of both the witness and his brother are not used.) The witness told us part of the story of this resistance cell. “The cell was made of officers from the Iraqi Army and security services who chose to stay in Mosul after its fall, because they were from the city, unlike the others who fled to other Iraqi cities.”

According to the witness, “The main activities of the cell were writing on the walls to show the existence of resistance and providing the security services with information and footage of ISIS bases and the movements of its members. This played a role in the operations against ISIS that culminated in expelling it from Mosul in 2017.”

The cell was later dismantled, as many of its members were arrested or killed. Former members of the Iraqi Army and security service fled toward Iraqi Kurdistan. Those who could not flee frequently changed their residence in order to avoid arrest, which would have been a death sentence.

Former sergeant Hamza Yassin says that he managed to flee with his family to Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. He adds, “My neighbor and friend, General Saleh al-Abidi, also managed to flee to Erbil, but he made a huge mistake by returning to Mosul after receiving assurances from the ISIS leadership. He was abducted upon his return. Until now, his family do not know anything about his fate.”

In mid-August 2016, ISIS published four videos, each showing a different method of executing members of the resistance cell: by beheading, burning, blowing up, and drowning. ISIS wanted to send a clear message that the result of rebellion would be death.

Ain al-Mosul (Eye of Mosul): An Antidote to ISIS Videos

 

 

ISIS employed a media strategy reliant on video content to spread fear and strengthen its image. This included videos of executions in which people were burned or beheaded. Moreover, ISIS banned any other media activity in the areas under its control. Journalists and activists were detained, and many of them disappeared.

According to a report published by the Iraqi Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, ISIS threatened anyone who reported information or news from the city with death. This was sanctioned by the instructions of the sharia court, which accused journalists of violating regulations and leaking information from the city to local and foreign media.

The same report mentions that ISIS was able to seize the fully equipped studios of eight TV and radio organizations. The cameras of the Sama al-Mosul channel, owned by Governor Athil al-Najifi, were used to film the first appearance of the then-ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Furthermore, ISIS launched the al-Bayan and Dabiq stations on AM frequencies, using the advanced equipment seized from various media organizations.

To counter ISIS propaganda, a Facebook page called Ain al-Mosul (Eye of Mosul) was set up. The page succeeded in winning over public opinion as it was, for the most part, the only means to document the crimes of ISIS and show them to Arab and foreign audiences. The page published information and news in Arabic and English.

The page, which was later removed from Facebook after its content had been saved in a blog, documented daily life under ISIS, the oppressive practices of its members, the restrictions on women’s freedoms, the amount of taxes imposed on residents, how factories and oil refineries were captured, and the aftermath of US airstrikes. It published footage of people accused of adultery being stoned, men accused of sodomy being thrown from high buildings, and other types of executions carried out in public. It also published news of secret killings. Furthermore, it published information about the types of resistance mounted by Mosul residents.

It highlighted local views and attitudes toward ISIS that were expressed in anonymous interviews with local residents. It also talked about aspects of the civil resistance in Mosul. In February 2015, it reported that residents refused to send their children to schools and universities, and that some parents refused to send their daughters to schools where they would be under “the control of barbaric [ISIS] members.” The page also reported that some residents “no longer had difficulty obtaining cigarettes,” a bold challenge to ISIS, which had criminalized smoking and selling cigarettes.

In 2015, the page documented 455 executions and their locations in September alone, with a breakdown of the victims’ ethnicities and religions. It also published information about dozens of ISIS fighters who had been killed in the Global Coalition’s airstrikes against ISIS weapons depots and other military targets. It published photographs of ISIS members it labeled as “prime suspects” with the caption, “Wanted for committing war crimes against the people of Mosul.”

The founder of the page, Omar Muhammad, said in a 2016 interview that he had worked to document everything he saw in the city, not only concerning ISIS, but also concerning the residents and their daily lives. He added, “I went to the markets and mixed with people, and ISIS members too. I engaged them in discussions and argued with them. They listened to me, especially when I met a group of them in the old markets. I talked to them about Islamic jurisprudence in a way that captivated them, because of my knowledge of Islam. They responded by saying ‘Mashallah’ [meant as praise].”

Omar stressed that Mosul was living in an atmosphere of fear during ISIS control. “Children and teenagers [who were duped into joining ISIS] were raised on violence. They became the primary source for increasing extremism in the region.” In a 2015 interview, he said, “The people of Mosul cannot trust anyone, not even their family members in some cases. There is a state of fear, just like how it was under Saddam Hussein. People view ISIS as a brutal, heinous group that imposes harsh laws.”

Late in 2015, the founder of Ain al-Mosul left Mosul. After reaching Europe, he continued his work on the page with the help of his family and friends, who used secure ways of communication to contact him and document the crimes of ISIS.

Ain al-Mosul was an important source of news from inside Mosul during the fight against ISIS. It documented the bombardment of the Global Coalition and Iraqi forces and the movements of ISIS members. After the liberation of Mosul, the founder revealed his identity, as he considered ISIS to have been defeated.

Omar Muhammad survived, but many journalists did not. ISIS executed dozens of journalists for ‘treason and spying.’ A year and a half after taking control of Mosul, ISIS had abducted 48 journalists, media assistants, and journalism students. At the time of writing this report, many of them are still missing.

 

Silencing the Voice: Nedal Samira al-Naimi

 

Samira Ali Saleh al-Naimi was a human rights activist well known to the people of Mosul years before ISIS captured the city. According to many testimonies, the lawyer, who was in her 50s, was known for her brave stances in the era of terror. After ISIS took control of the city, al-Naimi was one of the few voices that criticized the group.

Al-Naimi was born in 1963. She learned to read and write in the schools especially charged with combating illiteracy, then continued her education, studying history then law at university.

Al-Naimi, mother to a son and daughter, both of whom are married, was known for her activism in the public sphere. She opposed the American presence in Iraq and defended in court detainees in US and Iraqi prisons. She was also known for her voluntary work with orphans and the disabled.

In 2011, she organized a sit-in with other local activists to demand that the central Iraqi government release detainees from Mosul, especially females. She used her Facebook page as a platform to share her views on the conditions in Iraq, with a particular focus on Mosul.

Her anger against ISIS reached its peak after the detonation of the Nabi Younus Mosque on July 24, 2024. She attacked ISIS on her Facebook account, writing: “Down with the Zionist agent, Abu Jahl al-Baghdadi.” This referred to the then-ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Her son, Salem Muhammad Amin, says that days after the detonation of the Nabi Younus Mosque, his mother went in “broad daylight to the textile factory in the Mansour neighborhood and wrote anti-ISIS and anti-Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi phrases on the wall of the factory with a piece of charcoal.”

She then drove her car to the school in the same neighborhood and wrote the same phrases on a wall there. ISIS members followed her and, a few hours later, raided her daughter’s house, where they arrested al-Naimi.

There are different accounts regarding the date on which al-Naimi was arrested, but what is certain is that she faced interrogation and torture in September 2014. On the morning of September 22, she was taken to the Bab al-Toub Square in central Mosul near the governorate building, where ISIS members executed her by shooting. Her body was then handed to the coroner. ISIS told her family that they could take her body from the coroner the next day. One relative said that ISIS issued an order banning the erection of a condolence tent for her.

The then-spokeswoman of the United States State Department, Jennifer Psaki, condemned the execution of al-Naimi. Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General for Iraq Nickolay Mladenov issued a statement that read, “The public execution of well-known human rights lawyer and activist, Ms. Sameera Salih Ali al-Nuaimy, in Mosul, is yet another of the innumerable sickening crimes committed against the people of Iraq by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) … ISIL has repeatedly targeted the weak and defenseless in acts of brutality and cowardice that are beyond description, bringing about unfathomable suffering to all Iraqis, regardless of their gender, age, religion, faith or ethnicity.”

In a statement to the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, lawyer and Member of the Iraqi Parliament representing Nineveh province Intisar al-Jabouri, who was a colleague of Samira al-Naimi, said, “The execution of the activist and politician, my dear colleague Samira al-Naimi, by ISIS is a gravely dangerous act. It is yet another one of the many crimes committed by ISIS against everybody, men and women.”

 

A Teacher’s Integrity Cost Her Life

 

In October 2014, four months after it had captured Mosul, ISIS imposed new regulations regarding the school curriculum. It banned certain subjects at all educational levels, from primary school to university, declaring, “the current year marks the end of using the old curriculum.” It removed the phrase ‘Republic of Iraq,’ national songs, and poems. It also changed terminology. For example, ‘Education Diwan’ was used instead of ‘Education Ministry,’ ‘Jihadi preparation’ was used instead of ‘physical education,’ ‘Jihadi education and sharia policy’ was used instead of ‘national education,’ and ‘first sharia grade’ was used instead of ‘first grade.’

Some residents stopped sending their children to school, and some university students stopped attending their classes. However, teachers were obliged to teach the newly imposed curriculum.

According to witness testimonies, Ashwaq al-Naimi, a teacher at al-Zuhour High School in Mosul, rejected the new curriculum and the regulations imposed by ISIS. She organized visits to the students’ parents, urging them not to send their children to school.

ISIS brought her in for interrogation and threatened her with death if she did not comply with the new regulations. However, she persisted in her opposition until she was arrested at her home.

According to her colleague Saousan Saleh, “What distinguishes her is that she stuck to her beliefs when ISIS members came and tried to impose their instructions regarding terminology and topics.”

On December 10, 2015, ISIS executed Ashwaq al-Naimi by shooting in central Mosul. Her family was banned from erecting a condolence tent. Only her family members offered condolences, according to one of her colleagues.

Her colleague said, “ISIS showed how harsh it is to those who oppose it. Dozens of Mosul residents were executed, including doctors, lawyers, teachers, [government] employees, soldiers, and police officers. Therefore, al-Naimi’s colleagues, her friends and neighbors did not dare to attend her funeral or offer condolences. They feared that would get them blacklisted.”

 

Bringing Down the ISIS Banner

 

 

The extent of civilian suffering because of ISIS violations was “numbing and intolerable,” according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein. His words were quoted in a report published by the UN High Commissioner in 2016. The report describes children being forced to carry out executions, as well as systematic mass killings perpetrated in the most brutal ways. It mentions the increasing suffering of women in addition to the discovery of mass graves in various areas of Nineveh province.

Fear among civilians peaked as a result of ISIS’s intimidatory tactics and its regulations that restricted religious practices, public freedoms, and personal behavior. In this context, it was logical that, in some cases, oppositional acts were performed individually and in secret.

For example, Ali Eid Khalaf al-Jamili, a 25-year-old man from al-Sharqat district in southern Nineveh, chose to oppose ISIS in his own way.

In an interview, his father emotionally recalled his son’s actions: “One night, my son left the house without telling anyone in the family. He went to an open area in the center of the Sharqat district where there was a high telecommunications tower. I don’t know how he evaded detection by ISIS because they had several security points and patrols.”

His father told the IPM that he woke up the next day to the news that an ISIS banner had been downed and the Iraq flag had been raised in its place. “People talked in whispers throughout the district,” he said. “Their feelings ranged between joy and fear. They felt that something was happening in secret that indicated the existence of resistance. At the same time, they knew that this incident would bring dire consequences for everybody, and that there would be arrests, interrogations, and terror in the coming hours.” That is exactly what happened. Many men from the district were arbitrarily arrested after the incident. They were subjected to prolonged interrogations, during which they were beaten severely.

Ali’s father said: “It did not occur to me that my son was the one who had done it. I had never heard him threaten action against ISIS. That’s why I was not worried about him when he was arrested with the rest of the men. He was released two days later. However, four days after that, they raided the house and dragged him on the floor to the car that was waiting.”

Later, Ali confessed that he was responsible for bringing down the ISIS banner. On January 29, 2016, his father saw Ali’s execution: “I shuddered when I saw my son wearing the orange suit. I felt feeble. I tried to pull myself together. I prayed to God to help me and my son. He was forced to climb up the tower. A camera was attached to his forehead. Everyone observed him as he climbed the tower. Their orders were to take down the Iraqi flag that he had raised and to replace it with the black banner of ISIS, to humiliate him further.”

But Ali continued his resistance till his last breath. He tore down the ISIS banner again and waved the Iraq flag. He was shot in the chest. His father adds: “At 3:00 am, I found his body, beheaded under the tower. Nobody dared to reach him for fear they might be executed.”

Ali’s actions had consequences for all his family. They were accused of ‘apostasy,’ and people were banned from communicating with them. His father was treated harshly, the children were beaten, and the family’s house was blown up.

 

A Revenge Attack

 

Mosul paid a heavy price for rejecting ISIS. Thousands of residents were arrested on various charges and executed. On August 4, 2015, ISIS posted a list on the wall of the Coroner’s Office of 2,072 people who had been executed. Their bodies were not handed over to their families. It is likely that the bodies were thrown in a big hole twenty kilometers south of Mosul known as the Khasfa. ISIS turned the Khasfa hole into a mass grave in the years between 2014 and 2017.

In a report published on March 22, 2017, Human Rights Watch revealed that 25,000 people executed by ISIS had been thrown into the Khasfa.

The execution of so many Mosul residents deeply grieved the general population. It was natural that it created hatred toward ISIS members, and a desire for revenge. The IPM met a man in Mosul referred to here as N. A. He described how he avenged his brother, who had been detained in one of the ISIS prisons: “One evening, four ISIS members knocked on our door and asked my older brother, who had previously worked for the election commission, to go with them to the ISIS base in the al-Aamil neighborhood, where we live, to give statements about the nature of his former job.”

N. A. continued, “Actually, I never trusted them from the first moment they entered Mosul. At the same time, I was not satisfied at all with the practices of the army and security services before the fall of my city. I decided to accompany my brother to the base to be sure, but I was informed at the base that the investigation procedures would not last more than two days.”

The wait was very difficult. The family was very worried about their son, who was preparing to get married. Unfortunately, the end of those two days was worse than anyone expected. N. A. says, “I went to the base. A guard took me to another [ISIS] member. I stood before him as he looked at me with eyes full of callousness. Before I had a chance to ask about my brother, he pointed his right-hand index finger to my face and warned me in standard Arabic about the dark fate that awaits the disbelievers and those who desert the fold of Islam. Then in a brief sentence, he asked me to go to the coroner to receive the body of my brother, and warned me against erecting a condolences tent.”

N. A. decided to take revenge, “regardless of the consequences. It became a matter of personal revenge.” The steps he took next led to the death of two ISIS members. “One day, I was on my way back from the small grocery store that I own in the New Mosul area. I noticed that there were two ISIS members standing in the street. In seconds, I decided to seize the chance to carry out my vow of revenge.” After making sure there were no witnesses, N. A. hit the two members with his car. “They fell to the ground. I got out of the car to make sure they could not get up or move. I took a gun from one of them and shot them several times in the head.”

 

Stories from Old Mosul

 

ISIS turned busy public spaces in Mosul into execution grounds. Some examples are: Bab al-Toub Square in central Mosul, the al-Dawwasa area, al-Faisaliyya, the al-Najjar neighborhood, the Kazraj area, the Ras al-Jadda area, the al-Wahda neighborhood, the al-Yarmouk intersection, the al-Islah al-Zirai neighborhood, and the five bridges in the city.

In the historical Haddadin market near the Old Mosul Bridge, the IPM met Muhammad Shaker, who owns a blacksmith’s shop. Muhammad talked about what he witnessed during ISIS rule. “I remember seeing three bodies hanging by their feet at the barbed wire of al-Hurriya Bridge. Their heads were dangling toward the river. They remained that way for a long time until they decayed and dried out, and then turned into skeletons.”

“I saw something similar another time at the beginning of the Old Bridge,” he continued, “just meters away from my shop. There were two bodies hanging on either side of the bridge. What stuck in my memory was that the guts of one body had fallen out, and this attracted dogs.”

In June 2015, the Coroner’s Office in the city reported that the highest number of killings had been recorded in the Bab al-Toub market. ISIS transformed Bab al-Toub from the largest market in Mosul to an execution ground where hundreds of people were killed. Among those executed were five young men who worked in a famous fresh-juice shop in Bab al-Toub called Sabah Abu al-Sherbet. ISIS executed them after accusing them of spying for the Iraqi security services.

The IPM talked to Imad, the 50-year-old father of one of the five young men. His son Omar was arrested on July 27, 2016, on the charge of “spying and communicating by phone with the apostate disbelievers of the security services in Baghdad,” as ISIS members informed him.

Omar’s father learned that his son had been arrested along with his workmates in the shop. “Two weeks after his arrest, I learned that the reason for their arrest was that a Russian ISIS member who used to frequent the shop was killed on the day of their arrest. Earlier that day, the member had bought something from the shop and left, and then was hit by a drone near the general hospital, killing him and those with him in the car.”

The five young men were accused of leaking information about the member after traces of juice were found in his car. Omar’s mother says, “My son remained under arrest and interrogation for 76 days, and according to what we heard, he was tortured in brutal ways. During his detention, I stood for hours, day and night, by the door waiting for his return, until that ominous day when we heard that an execution was going to be carried out at the sherbet shop.”

Both Omar’s father and Omar’s son witnessed the execution in front of the shop. In anguish, Omar’s father described how Omar’s son pleaded with ISIS members to spare his father, but “it was done in an instant, the five young men’s bodies fell to the ground stained in blood. I noticed that my son’s body was almost in a prostrating position … One ISIS member moved toward his body and kicked it so it slid over and fell to the ground.” After that, ISIS members transported the bodies by car to an unknown location. The family was not able to bury their son or even to learn where he had been buried.

“Later,” Omar’s father added, “I learned that my son and the other young men were part of the resistance brigades, and they were in constant communication with the Iraqi security forces until the day of their arrest.”

Before the execution, the group from Sabah Abu al-Sherbet had filmed videos titled ‘Bashir al-Nasr’ (‘Tidings of Victory’). The videos included footage of ISIS bases in Mosul and secret activities such as writing the resistance symbol م on the walls or distributing food to help families in need, as the siege of Mosul was becoming tighter and many were suffering from hunger.

In the old neighborhoods on the right side of Mosul that suffered a lot of damage and violence, the IPM heard many stories of people who criticized and challenged ISIS in their own ways. A barber in his 30s living in al-Dawwasa, for instance, told us how two young men were tortured and executed after they appeared drunk in a video. ISIS had issued a complete ban on consuming alcoholic drinks. The barber added, “The defiance of the two young men did not stop there. They also mocked Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the video, and exchanged jokes at his expense.”

 

The Revolution as a Cultural Project

On December 10, 2017, at the culmination of a military campaign led by the Global Coalition, the Iraqi armed forces entered Mosul and defeated ISIS. Forces from many countries had participated in the campaign. Based on hospital reports and death tolls by civil organizations that documented airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, the Associated Press estimated that 11,000 civilians were killed during that campaign.

Mosul paid a heavy price for its resistance, which was a comprehensive project. It was not merely armed resistance and writing on the walls, but also a form of defiance based on strong values. The resistance in Mosul was an active, conscious choice by a society that stood together in solidarity against the oppressive ideology of ISIS.

There is no evidence that any political party or specific group was behind the resistance in Mosul, even though some groups in Nineveh have tried to promote such rumors. It can be said that the resistance in Mosul, as a cultural and societal project, did not stop at liberating the city from the rule of ISIS, but continued to be an effective and dynamic tool to achieve the hopes of Mosul’s society.

Those who follow the active cultural life of Mosul today will see a lively civic scene that is very different from how it was before June 10, 2014. Many civil society organizations have been founded recently to work on cultural projects and to devote special attention to the cultural and civilizational legacy of the city.