The siege of Mosul between ISIS and the International Alliance

The city of Mosul is living a tragic situation and a significant economic blockade and a bleak picture of daily toil and suffering to continue life in a city that is the second largest city in Iraq, with a population of more than 2 million people that make up the census of Nineveh province and the families who were displaced from the cities and districts of the provinces of Anbar and Salahuddin to escape from military operations or because of what armed militias did against them from killing, destruction and burning of their houses , farms and properties and forced displacement of many of them.
The state regulation is still controlling the city and public utilities of life in a firm and complete way in which people is suffering from interference and abuse on their lives, which are done in accordance with regular and systematic approach to inflict harm on them and on their heritage , culture and buildings and everything beautiful in the city, all this was fulfilled to complete the suffering experienced by the people of Mosul before June 9 2014 of deliberate government approach which relies on provocative sectarian policies based on humiliation and abuse.

We note in recent days the intensification of the ways of confrontation by the leadership of the international coalition and its fighter jets and air strikes on the city of Mosul and the districts in the province of Nineveh, and consolidate the control on the supply routes and communications between Syria and Iraq, starting from the Syrian Al-Raqqah city and t o end in Iraqi Mosul city , which negatively affected the lives of citizens and increased the suffering and the rigors of their living and depress their economic life and the lack of cash and money in the city and the scarcity of medicines and medical products and scarcity and lack of drugs for the old and the difficulty of medication and treatment because of prices imposed by officials of the organization of state on the citizens during their going to hospitals and health centers that the most basic factors of preventive health are missing .
It is worth noting to record of what the city of Mosul is suffering from scenes and internal and realistic events which calls for the World , Islamic , Arab and mankind conscience , that it is a captive of the situation imposed on it and on its people by force , arms, murder and destruction.
1.The city of Mosul is suffering of great scarcity of food and the high prices and the absence of a lot of necessary materials for life , with an increase in legumes and vegetable prices, where it has become the price of these substances by (4) thousands of Iraqi dinars per kilo and this represents a heavy burden on the citizens of the city, where it is difficult to get food to their families .
2. The rise of fuel prices and poor quality of material used for heating and the people of the city suffered a tragic situation because of bad weather and stinging cold wave that the region experienced in general and the difficulty in obtaining these materials due to its high prices.
3. The stop of drinking water from the city for a long period of more than (20) days noting that It can not be for the family to get drinking water only in every three weeks and by (two hours), just as it is through access to water , storage is made and when it comes to an end , the members of the family use primitive ways to get water from the banks of the Tigris River, which mediates the city, and the reason is due to malfunction of the main water network because of the air bombing and it could not be repaired.
4.To tighten the closure of passageways around the city and to prevent residents to leave without the permission of a special Islamic courts with a sponsor guarantor for anyone who wants to leave and hand over one of his property bonds to the court and confiscated it if the person has not returned to his home or his city after two weeks of departure.
5.The city is suffering from unemployment and economic recession, and a lack of trade exchange due to the suspension of private-sector activity and the paralysis after the air strikes, which affected the supply routes and transportation across the Iraqi-Syrian border, which are negatively affected on the nature of the local business market in the city and the lack of consumer goods needed by the citizen.
6. The monthly salaries did not arrive to the whole state employees who are in the city and stopped for several months that produced a difficult economic situation, and social and financial distress among a large segment of the people of the city, including employees and workers in government departments and institutions that form injustice and unfairness by the government in Baghdad that contributed to enhancing the image of injustice experienced by the city and the people who bear the consequences of the tragic situation which suffered after the events of the ninth of June 2014.
7. The continuation of harassment and methods of violence that followed by the fighters in their relations with the city’s population that reached its climax in the citizens’ arrest and the pressure on them and executions and killing to many of them and sow fear and panic among the inhabitants of the city and the continuation of raids and arrest violators of them and non-collaborators with them .
8.The continuation of collection of royalties and collect money from residents, shops, offices and commercial and domestic markets under the pretext of supporting the fighters and the maturity of Zakat and offenders expose themselves to arrest, that increased the states of grumbling and suffering experienced by residents specially they live harsh financial situation .
9 . The abstention of people of the city and its youth from joining the ranks of state regulation after they witnessed the fact that repressive tactics used by them and the rigid hard-line ideology that adopted in spite of attempts by its fighters in their meeting, and the use of mosques to make them aware of it and marketing ideas of the organization in their minds.
10.The organization is currently suffering from a major problem that affect its military effectiveness in terms that they lost their combat embrace, which were supporting them due to their role in weakening the role of tribal and social symbols in the city.
11. The enlargement of organization circle and its extensions through instilling fear in the hearts of the citizens of the state control of the areas seized by the organization and spread the horror in it because of the methods that are followed after the entry of militias or the popular crowd to areas that the regulation withdraws from it .
12. The reduction of the existence of the organization and its impact on areas dominated by it because of the permanence of receiving shocks and its continuity by the international coalition forces and the organization is replacing its headquarters and positions that they used at the beginning of their entry in anticipation of air strikes and stay away from being in public places public and follow the policy of the hiding from the sights of others and avoid others to meet.
13. The group’s leaders are following new security methods to preserve the elements and its fighters after several operations targeting their cadres within the city and included their sites and places of training and guiding elements of the organization not to use four-wheel drive cars in their movements , in particular during military confrontations and not to go out in a large military convoys for fear of being targeted by international coalition aircrafts.
The humanitarian tragic situations in the city of Mosul and the suffering of its citizens of the cruelty of the living conditions and a lack of the most basic elements of free and dignified life and the scarcity of food and the lack of potable water and the scarcity of medicines and medical products and the lack of hospitals for the most basic daily treatment, predicts of the transformation of the city and its people to a major humanitarian disaster and painful tragic pictures as a result of the economic blockade imposed on it now, and that eventually leads to the daily systematic death as a result of the loss of food and medicine.

Rawabet Research and Strategic Studies Center