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Mosul liberation: A flashback

Wednesday, 12 July 2017 4:40 AM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 12 July 2017 4:43 AM ]

An Iraqi federal police member waves his country (Photo by AFP)

Rise of Daesh

Daesh is finally eliminated in Mosul as expected from the moment when the Iraqis began their offensives to liberate the city. The trail of destruction and the numerous lives lost as a result of atrocities by the terror group raise the question: how did Daesh come into being? The obvious answer to the question is: Daesh mutated form militant groups who took up arms against the Syrian government in 2011. The group soon swallowed smaller gangs of militants and snowballed into a monster and overran one area after another in Syria. In 2014, the group rolled into neighboring Iraq with the aim of creating its self-proclaimed caliphate in both Syria and Iraq. Daesh took advantage of the disarray within the Iraqi army’s ranks and captured the northern city of Mosul and some other areas in the country’s west. Some blame the crash of the Iraqi forces in the face of the advancing terrorists on the government of former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

The future against Daesh
The Daesh occupation of Mosul left Iraq’s second largest city in ruins, claimed thousands of lives and displaced nearly a million more. The battle is over now, but not the struggle for Iraq's future. To some degree, the imperative of defeating Daesh united Iraq’s disparate forces. Now, it’s feared that the fault lines between ethnic and religious groups may re-emerge. To complicate matters further, other power struggles are taking place that can shape the future of the country.The victory in Mosul might pose an equally volatile challenge to Iraq’s stability. Last year, The President of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, Massoud Barzani, called for a referendum on independence, stating "The time has come and the situation is now suitable for the Kurdish people to make a decision through a referendum on their fate”. Meanwhile, the Kurds have taken advantage of the fight against Daesh to seize control of 70 percent of the territories in northern Iraq that are disputed between Arabs and Kurds.

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Mosul