Battle for Mosul: Road Road

"This is a terrible war, here both monstrous crimes against humanity and real acts of self -sacrifice, and heroic exploits take place daily." In the north of Iraq , the battle for the key city of Mosul continues, which is already called the largest military operation in the country since 2003, when the dictator Saddam Hussein was overthrown.

The Islamic State groups of the Islamic State group forbidden in Russia are simultaneously trying to regils government troops, Kurdish formations of Peshmerga , Shiite detachments and other local militias supported by Iran. The battles for the mosul will continue, obviously for a long time - their intensity is growing, radical Islamists refuse to give up and are preparing to defend each quarter of the city they captured, in which hundreds of thousands of inhabitants remain.

The lives of people in the territories under the rule of the Islamic State group, as everyone who managed to escape from the jihadists, has turned into continuous torture in the literal sense of the word. This is confirmed by the Ukrainian journalist and reporter Yuri Matsarsky , who has just returned from the place of fights for Mosul. In an interview with Radio Liberty, he talks about his impressions of this war:

- The last time I was in Iraqi Kurdistan a little less than a year ago and I can trace the huge changes that have occurred during this time. The most important thing: if a year ago, the Islamic State group constantly advanced, seized the territory and was in the period of growth of its power, now it, on the contrary, narrows, retreats and surrenders more and more lands and suffers more and more defeats.

-You wrote that everything that happens in the north of Iraq resembles a series of old films of the 80s about "Mad Max" with Mel Gibson. And what, all the types of "desert post -apocalypse" are there?

Mosul: Fighters of the Iraqi Special Purpose Forces and a school textbook published by the Islamic State

- Yes, really. At least the Kurdish militia-they do not have any statutory form, there is no general weapons. These are people who are dressed who are in what is the same, armed with anything. It can be some ancient Chinese machine gun Kalashnikov, and a modern machine gun, delivered by one of the Western allies, Germans or Americans. In addition, their technique is also a very important point! The country has a huge number of military equipment, which the Americans left back in the early 2000s, it was transferred to the authorities or the army of Iraq, and sometimes directly the "Peshmerga". In addition, there is a huge amount of equipment from the one that was transferred to the Iraq army, and subsequently captured by the militants of the Islamic State and is now repulsed again - the army or Peshmerga. So, all this technique is often with "collective farm tuning", as they say. Everything that is possible is hung on it and hung, some iron sheets, bars, to protect from fragments, bullets and so on. This is something completely incredible! Some mattresses, old furniture, metal doors, shot from nowhere. And such trucks and pickups take one replenishment after another to the front.

- With the militants of the Islamic State group, really a variety of forces fight under the mosul, they differ externally, differ in weapons, methods. How do they differ internally?

The main controversial moment is to whom Mosul will then belong!

- Yes, very, everything - if we are talking about the Kurdish militia, and about the Iraqi army, and about the Western allies. The main controversial moment is to whom Mosul will then belong! The fact is that the Militia of Peshmerga itself has not yet been allowed into the city allies. Mosul has not yet been liberated, the city is still holding the Islamic State, but from time to time the special forces of the Iraqi army come there. And what is immediately noticeable when you come to the front line - the offensive of the Kurdish militia, the attack of the Iraqi army and the offensive of the Shiite police occur in parallel. That is, these are not the forces that come together, by a united front, no! A certain section of the front is assigned to each of these forces, and they are fighting on it.

I managed to talk at the front line with the commander of one of the Peshmerg detachments, which always go ahead, step in the position of the Islamic State. And I asked him if there is coordination between these different forces? He replied that, being the head of a detachment of several hundred people at the front line, he did not enter into any contact with the Iraqi army at all! Although they see each other, parts of the "Peshmerga" and units of the Iraqi army are in visual contact with each other, but nevertheless, they do not talk. All coordination, as this commander explained to me, takes place at the level of the administration of the President of Iraqi Kurdistan . Already there, Masud Barzani himself personally contacts both Baghdad, and, apparently, with Washington, and with other capitals of states, which are sent to the north of Iraq of the Force in order to defeat the Islamic State.

Shiite detachment car near Mosul

- I just wanted to ask how such implacable opponents, heterogeneous forces manage to maintain coordination. In addition to certain local, let's say, military personnel, are there any units of Western states actively operating there?

- Yes, more than actively! There is a considerable number of Turkish troops, there are units of the Western armies. First of all, this, of course, is either special forces, or artillery, or air forces, that is, planes and helicopters that bomb jihadists. The most noticeable Western force is the Americans, there are many of them, and they are not at all hidden. The Americans move on their cars that replaced Humvee, this is a new generation of American combat vehicles like Oshkosh . In addition, quite often they move on American civilian pickups, however, with Iraqi numbers, and are not at all embarrassed by their presence, do not try to hide it. Moreover, even the emblems are not hidden by which it is possible to determine the belonging of certain fighters to the formations. For example, a large number of fighters of the 101st Airborne Division of the US Army were noticeable, the very one in which, for example, Jimi Handrix served.

Armored car of the US Army near Mosul

- How terrible are the destruction? After the military operations end, will there be any places suitable for life?

- This is, in fact, one of the biggest problems. Because those places in which the militants of the Islamic State were, often not only were bombing, fired, including using artillery (and this alone caused gigantic destruction of cities and villages), but a plus to this, when the jihadists came to these villages and cities and expelled civilians from there (this happened constantly), it untied their hands and local self -defense forces, and local self -defense forces. The same "Peshmerga", and the Western coalition, which very actively attacked these areas. In a number of places there are actually no residential buildings left at all. In addition, there is a great danger in the clearance of areas that are destroyed, entirely or partially. There are a lot of where there are a lot of fugas, a lot of mined ruins and whole houses. Fighters of the ethno-religious group "Kakai" , who have lost all their villages at all, say that now in all these ruins there are unexploded landmines and that you need to build housing in new places rather than trying to cleanse old settlements and try to build new houses there. Firstly, indeed, the number of unexploded ammunition is enormous, and secondly, in the north of Iraq there are very few specialists who can professionally be cleaned.

- People who have visited the rule of jihadists are ready to make contact in the liberated territories? What do they talk about life in this modern "Mordor"?

Ruins of the blown up church of the Kakai nationality

- In fact, these are people are very different, as elsewhere. Someone, and it greatly surprised me, was ready to remain under the rule of the "ISIS" himself, including in a number of completely Kurdish villages. Some had the circumstances that were understandable to everyone - it is a pity to leave a house, an economy, often still expensive agricultural machinery. And there they expected that the militants, of course, were partly cannibals, but it seems to be the same Muslims, the Sunnis, and therefore they would not be driven. In fact, the radicals from the "Islamic state" were kicked out of the Kurdish villages, which they captured, almost everyone - because, in their opinion, "Sunnis Sunnis", but they "do not trust anyone." As the Sunnites of these Kurds, the jihadists did not in place to cut or steal into slavery, but they were not allowed to stay in their native villages. They were forced to go to the refugee camps or relatives. Now they are slowly returning. There are a lot of complaints that people were kicked out of the houses, and then these houses were turned into some landfills, if they did not say that everything just drowned in the mud. And those people who had to stay in the territories occupied by the Islamic State group are now experiencing incredible euphoria when they manage to escape. Even when instead of the house in which they lived all their lives, they get a tent in the refugee camp, they are very happy that they managed to break out of there.

The funeral of a child killed as a result of shelling by jihadists

- What will happen with tens of thousands of people who run, as I understand it, from everywhere and from everyone? While they are in the refugee camps, and then?

- There are several categories of people who are in refugee camps. And first of all, it is worth canceling those who themselves were directly related to the "Islamic state" and are now trying to get out of the entire narrowing ring of the environment. There are a large number of them, apparently, we are talking about thousands of people. Those who are running now from the former or still occupied territories are not allowed to the cities, and they remain in the camps. These are gigantic temporary settlements, there are tens of thousands of people in them, tents or rapidly gathering houses are from the horizon to the horizon. With those people who could be related to radical Islamists, a lot of special services, including the Western ones, is now working, in order to somehow filter them, identify all possible contacts and prevent their penetration into peaceful cities or already liberated. Secondly, these are civilians from those territories that are now being liberated from the power of the Islamic State group. After they are undergoing some kind of audit, after it becomes clear that they have nothing to do with criminal groups, they calmly leave home, often even receiving some help and nutrition and medicines from international organizations for the first time.

Drawing on the house in the area controlled by the Kurdish detachments "Peshmerga"

There is a category of people who are the least protected, who certainly need help, and urgently! These are former slaves, primarily a slave, an Islamic state. These are unhappy women who spent 2–2.5 years in slavery, often it was sexual slavery. They were captured with their husbands and children, then their husbands were killed, the houses were destroyed. They now live in camps, not understanding where they can return, what they can do in those villages and cities where they come from. They have no husbands who provided them, there are no houses that can be returned to. This is a huge problem. A similar problem exists with kakai. There are only about 100 thousand people, almost all of their villages are destroyed, a huge number of them went to the cities of the north of Iraq or to nearby countries. Not a single temple remained, because the Jihadists of the Islamic State are considered pagans and always killed on the spot, and the first thing they were destroyed by their temples, the sanctuaries and graves of their saints, the founders of this religion. Kakai men are still fighting in the ranks of the Kurdish militia "Peshmerga". But when the war ends, they will also have nowhere to return. They have no houses, work, their fields are mined, the workshops are destroyed. And these people also ask for the world community for help, beg at least help in the restoration of their shrines, temples. Because they have no money, building materials to return everything to their original state.

- And what are the captured Islamists, what are these people? Are they really all crazy fanatics or just very cruel bandits, but in their right mind?

The ruins of the ancient city of Nimrud, a few days ago freed from jihadists

-I have been observing these Islamists over the past 5-6 years, I met with them in Syria, in Turkey, and in Iraq. Let's just imagine that we are talking about tens of thousands of people who are fighting not only for the Islamic State group, but also for a lot of other large and small jihadist groups, in Syria, in Iraq. Of course, among them there are people who are convinced that they fulfill some kind of divine mission. I talked, for example, with one such person a few years ago in Syria. He was from Turkmenistan, still in the Soviet school, he was then a little over thirty, he was my peer, and we even spoke Russian. And so he was confident in the divinity of his mission, that what they are doing now in this desert is destined for Allah! He came there with his own children, participate in Jihad. The youngest son was 4-5 years old, and he taught him how to make landmines! And the child made these same landmines, which then lay somewhere on the road. And in the worst case, the children a little older, 14-16 years old, put these landmines in trucks, cars and motorcycles, got behind the wheel and became suicides, the so-called "shahids", went in these machines to the "conditional enemy" and exploded themselves! For them, all other, of course, are “unconditional opponents”.

The youngest son was 4-5 years old, and he taught him how to make landmines!

In addition, there are a certain number of people who came "for adrenaline", as they say, there are also enough of them. But now they say that the outflow of these people is very noticeable. When the Islamic State group was advancing and seized more and more new territories every day, such people only arrived, but now that the jihadists recede, of course, they are trying to leave the territories of Iraq and Syria, go home and wait.

- You also wrote that in the north of Iraq you met a person whose position is "the head of the Bureau for the Deadings of People." There is a debugged business? How do you manage to lead it, through all the lines of shelling, fronts, borders?

Sezidka girl saved from slavery by militants

- Now no one is trying to penetrate the territories of the Islamic State group beyond the front line in order to abduct people. We are talking about the capture of people on the occupied lands, about the seizure of hostages, which are then turned into slaves. And this is a monstrous story - for example, what is happening in the Syrian city of Rakka, which is now the so -called "capital" of this very "Islamic state." Even now there is a real slave market, they are primarily selling women and children of the Yezids. In addition, a certain number of Christians, women and children are also present there. This is a natural slave market, there women and children stand with price tags on their heads, and you can still bargain! The militants choose slaves for themselves, and first of all, as I said, sexual slaves, ”says Yuri Matsarsky .

A strategic attack on Mosul, in which a total of about 60 thousand fighters participate - Iraqi soldiers, Kurds, Shiites and local Sunni tribes, with the support of aviation of Western countries - began on October 17. In the north of Iraq, about 8 thousand soldiers of the NATO countries are also operating now, more than half of them are Americans. Mosul, according to unconfirmed data, defend from 5 to 10 thousand militants of the Islamic State group.