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[Murkas]

New news from the Mosul thread.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/09/world/middleeast/mosul-isis-liberated.html?smid=tw-bna

MOSUL, Iraq — Dressed in a military uniform, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi arrived here in Mosul on Sunday to congratulate Iraq’s armed forces on their victory over the Islamic State and mark the formal end of a bloody campaign that lasted nearly nine months, left much of Iraq’s second-largest city in ruins, killed thousands of people and displaced nearly a million more.

While there were reports that troops were still mopping up the last pockets of resistance and Iraqi forces could be facing suicide bombers and guerrilla attacks for weeks, the military began to savor its win in the shattered alleyways of the old city, where the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, put up a fierce last stand.

Hanging over the declaration of victory is the reality of the hard road ahead. The security forces in Mosul still face dangers, including ISIS sleeper cells and suicide bombers. And they must clear houses rigged with explosive booby traps so civilians can return and services can be restored. Nor is the broader fight over: Other cities and towns in Iraq remain under the militants’ control

“It’s going to continue to be hard every day,” said Col. Pat Work, the commanding officer of the Second Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, which is carrying out the American advisory effort here.

Searched and couldn't fine anything.

Some pics:

 

[Captain Smoker]

Finally.

 

[Meadows]

Good!

 

[JonnyDBrit]

Finally.

Perfect first post.

But seriously, this has been a long time coming, and glad for it. Hopefully Mosul will settle down over the coming months and/or years as Iraq clears IS from the rest of its territory.

 

[Sevenfold]

Glad of this news. Hell of a fight. I just hope this doesn't spur radicals to go on murderous sprees in the name of ISIS

Spoiler

but it probably will.

I can't imagine what it's like to enter a building knowing anything could be rigged to a nade. My respect for these troops knows no bounds.

 

[Bruce Springsteen]

According to a New York Times reporter in Mosul, when the reporter had received the breaking news from the times that ISIS was defeated in Mosul, she had said that at the same time there were gunfire and airstrikes going around her. The fight is not over

 

[cameron]

CBS News: As ISIS "sleepers" hunted in Mosul, focus shifts to Raqqa

Iraqi troops pushed slowly into the last sliver of ground in Mosul's Old City, along the west bank of the Tigris River, where ISIS fighters are holed-up.

Iraqi special forces commander Brig. Gen. Haider Fadhil told the Associated Press that even after that patch of land is reclaimed, his men will still need to conduct clearance operations to find and destroy ISIS "sleeper cells" and hidden explosives.

Fadhil and other commanders say hundreds of ISIS fighters are likely still hiding inside the Old City, and using their own family members -- including women and children -- as human shields.

"There's no accurate estimate for the Daesh fighters and the families who are stuck there," Lt. Gen. Abdul-Ghani al-Asadi, another special forces commander, told the AP, using an Arabic acronym for ISIS.

He said unarmed ISIS family members would be allowed to flee.

"We will not accuse them of anything," he said, "if they don't carry weapons they are civilians."

But even before this weekend, as ISIS faced imminent defeat in Mosul, attention had already shifted to Raqqa, the capital of ISIS' so-called "Islamic caliphate," across the border in Syria. In that country, the extremists still control towns, countryside, and part of their de-facto capital city, Raqqa.

U.S.-backed forces now have the extremists surrounded there, too.

Williams and her CBS News crew made it to the city two weeks ago, and walked through eerie neighborhoods; silent, except for gunfire. It is yet another city that has been brought to its knees by ISIS' cult of death and destruction.

Even when ISIS finally loses all of its territory in Iraq and Syria, nobody expects it to disappear.

Instead, the extremists are expected to convert into a traditional insurgency, and to continue carrying out terror attacks in the towns and cities they've terrorized for years.

Reuters: Basic infrastructure repair in Mosul will cost over $1 billion: U.N.

An initial assessment showed that "stabilization", which includes repairing water, sewage and electricity infrastructure and reopening schools and hospitals, would cost more than twice initial estimates, Lise Grande, the United Nations' Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, told Reuters in an interview.

The extent of damage was far greater than expected and much worse in the western half of the city than in the east, which was retaken from Islamic State six months ago, she said.

"In western Mosul what we're seeing is the worst damage of the entire conflict. In those neighborhoods where the fighting has been the fiercest, we're looking at levels of damage incomparable to anything else that has happened in Iraq so far."

Stabilization in eastern Mosul could be done in two months but it would take more than a year in the west, Grande said, and long-term reconstruction would cost many billions of dollars.

NYT: Iraq’s Moment of Celebration Is One of Deeper Risk, Too

MOSUL, Iraq — The fighting is all but over in Mosul, and the billboards are already up: hastily raised signs in which the government urged the city’s Sunni residents to “turn the page” from the terrorists of the Islamic State.

As Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited Mosul to declare victory and call for unity, civilians on the longer-secured east side of the city danced and waved Iraqi flags. Some called for brotherhood between Sunnis and Shiites, or chanted, “By our souls and blood, we sacrifice for you, Iraq!”

It is a moment for Iraqis to celebrate after nearly nine months of bloody warfare against the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State. But despite the flaring of hope for a new national unity, the government’s costly victory in Mosul and the questions hanging over its aftermath feel more like the next chapter in the long story of Iraq’s unraveling.

Most pressing is the need to bring back hundreds of thousands of displaced Sunni civilians. And the stark failures of that process in some other places freed from the Islamic State make clear that the process here carries both great importance and great risk.

Reports of past abuses by the Shiite-controlled government and its security forces and militia allies against Sunni families have kept sectarian divisions fresh. And with no sectarian reconciliation process to speak of, any setback in the resettling of Mosul could dangerously add to the list of grievances.

For the mostly Sunni residents of Mosul, there are the devastating aftereffects of living under the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh. And there is deep doubt and fear over what will happen to them next.

“The people of Mosul need to be psychologically treated and rehabilitated through long-term programs,” said Intisar al-Jibouri, a member of Parliament from Mosul. “They have lost family members, been tortured, beaten for silly reasons by ISIS.”

Concerns are growing that Shiite militias that mobilized in other parts of the country to fight the Islamic State could turn their guns on one another in a scramble for power. And the thoughts of many in Iraq’s Sunni community have stayed fixed on revenge against their neighbors who supported the Islamic State, with increasing reports of violent reprisals.

The Kurds, who have operated an autonomous enclave in the north since the 1990s, are moving quickly to hold a referendum on independence in September, despite pleas from American diplomats to hold off.

So, the end of the Mosul battle, even with the Islamic State still in control of other areas of the country, resurfaces a vital question that has been asked ever since the modern and multisectarian state of Iraq was created from the ashes of World War I: Can the country hold together?

At great cost in lives and property, Iraqis have shown that they can defeat the Islamic State militarily. But whether they are up to the political challenges to bring the country together again — or even get the lights turned on in Mosul, or bring the displaced back home, for that matter — is another question entirely.

“Right now we are only fighting Daesh militarily,” said Jabar Yawar, the secretary general of the pesh merga, the Kurdish security forces in northern Iraq.

As for politics and governance, Mr. Yawar, whose men participated in the early phases of the Mosul battle last fall, said: “There is nothing, no plan. We are fighting, and that’s it.”

With the larger questions hanging over the country, the immediate challenge of stabilizing Mosul is monumental, especially in the city’s west side. The fight has essentially turned the city into two, divided by the Tigris River. The west is a gray, dusty wasteland of flattened buildings and upturned, charred trucks; even the windows of the cars civilians are driving have been blown out. Cross the bridge, though, and suddenly the world emerges in light and color, with shops and restaurants open, and loud traffic jams.