How Mosul’s liberators became occupiers
Civilians in the Iraqi city of Mosul complain about the power of the militias who freed them from the clutches of the Islamic terror group IS, but turned to occupier later on.
Cars form long queues in front of petrol stations in Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul — a city in an oil-producing country that suffers from petrol shortages. This is one of the consequences of the presence of Shiite militias in this Sunni-majority city, which they liberated from the Islamic State (IS) in 2017.
“It feels like a new occupation,” says engineer Muaamar Sameer Saadoon, who imports and installs electrical appliances in Mosul. His company only just survived the IS occupation, and the liberation hasn’t brought much relief. “Daesh demanded a percentage on the earnings of companies like mine,” he says, using the local abbreviation for IS. “With Daesh, that was ten percent. Now, we have to pay 14 to 15 percent to the militias.”
