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3 Years after ISIS, Mosul Homes Remain Pile of Rubble

A picture taken on June 15, 2020 shows machinery clearing debris still left from the Battle of Mosul, when Iraqi forces and allied militias regained the northern Iraqi city from ISIS in 2017. (Photo by Zaid AL-OBEIDI / AFP)
A picture taken on June 15, 2020 shows machinery clearing debris still left from the Battle of Mosul, when Iraqi forces and allied militias regained the northern Iraqi city from ISIS in 2017. (Photo by Zaid AL-OBEIDI / AFP)
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3 Years after ISIS, Mosul Homes Remain Pile of Rubble

A picture taken on June 15, 2020 shows machinery clearing debris still left from the Battle of Mosul, when Iraqi forces and allied militias regained the northern Iraqi city from ISIS in 2017. (Photo by Zaid AL-OBEIDI / AFP)
A picture taken on June 15, 2020 shows machinery clearing debris still left from the Battle of Mosul, when Iraqi forces and allied militias regained the northern Iraqi city from ISIS in 2017. (Photo by Zaid AL-OBEIDI / AFP)

Ahmed Hamed has dreamt of rebuilding his pulverized home in Iraq's Mosul from the moment government forces recaptured the city from militants in 2017. But three years on, it remains a pile of rubble.

He is among tens of thousands of Iraqis who have filed claims to the Nineveh province's Subcommittee for Compensation, seeking reparations for material goods, injuries and even lives lost in the months-long fight to retake Mosul from ISIS.

"I still haven't gotten a cent, even though it's been so long since the liberation," said Hamed, 25, who works menial day jobs to afford a small apartment.

His original home lies in Mosul's ravaged western half, where ISIS made its final stand in the city and reconstruction has been the slowest.

Iraq gathered $30 billion in pledges from international donors in Kuwait in 2018 to rebuild, but virtually none of the funds have been disbursed.

Amid the novel coronavirus pandemic and plummeting oil prices, Iraq's government is struggling to rake in enough monthly revenues to break even –- pushing rebuilding even lower on its priorities list.

"Politicians keep telling us we need to go home," Hamed said, slamming the government's insistence on closing down the camps where more than one million Iraqis, rendered homeless by the fighting, are still seeking shelter.

"But how? Our homes are destroyed and there isn't a single public service that works."

According to a Norwegian Refugee Council survey in Mosul, over 270,000 people remain unable to return home and of those living there, 64 percent said they would be unable to pay rent in the next three months.

Every day, dozens of people queue outside a reception window at the Subcommittee for Compensation, clutching thick packets of multi-colored forms they pray will be approved by the central committee in Baghdad.

Among them under the midsummer sun was Ali Elias, hoping for news of his son, a soldier kidnapped by ISIS in 2017.

"I filed a claim on him shortly after the liberation, at least so we know what happened to him. It was sent to Baghdad, but no one answered," the 65-year-old told AFP.

"I'm getting old and I'm exhausted by spending my life in these different government offices," he said.

According to subcommittee head Mohammed Mahmoud, the body has received "90,000 claims, of which about 48,000 to 49,000 were for goods, houses, shops and other properties, and 39,000 for human loss -- dead, wounded or missing".

"We processed three-fourths of the claims on material damage, but there aren't enough funds to actually pay them out. We were only able to compensate 2,500 families," he said.

Most of the rebuilding efforts in the northern city have either been undertaken by individuals or by the United Nations and other international organizations.

The UN has reconstructed 2,000 homes, dozens of schools, healthcare centers, and water or power plants in Mosul since 2018, but even it has faced challenges.

According to a recent report by the American University of Iraq in Sulaimaniyah, the UN Development Program (UNDP) complained the "government is stalling or blocking projects rather than facilitating them.”

Seeking to root out corruption, the UN introduced long vetting processes, which further delayed rebuilding.

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In Assad's Hometown, Few Shared in His Family's Fortune. They Hope they Won't Share in His Downfall

A defaced portrait of ousted president Bashar al-Assad hangs on the wall of a building in the capital Damascus on December 17, 2024. (Photo by Sameer Al-DOUMY / AFP)
A defaced portrait of ousted president Bashar al-Assad hangs on the wall of a building in the capital Damascus on December 17, 2024. (Photo by Sameer Al-DOUMY / AFP)
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In Assad's Hometown, Few Shared in His Family's Fortune. They Hope they Won't Share in His Downfall

A defaced portrait of ousted president Bashar al-Assad hangs on the wall of a building in the capital Damascus on December 17, 2024. (Photo by Sameer Al-DOUMY / AFP)
A defaced portrait of ousted president Bashar al-Assad hangs on the wall of a building in the capital Damascus on December 17, 2024. (Photo by Sameer Al-DOUMY / AFP)

On the walls of the palatial mausoleum built to house the remains of former Syrian President Hafez Assad, vandals have sprayed variations of the phrase, “Damn your soul, Hafez.”
Nearly two weeks after the ouster of his son, Bashar Assad, people streamed in to take photos next to the burned-out hollow where the elder Assad’s grave used to be. It was torched by opposition fighters after a lightning offensive overthrew Assad's government, bringing more than a half-century rule by the Assad dynasty to an end, The Associated Press said.
The mausoleum's sprawling grounds — and the surrounding area, where the ousted president and other relatives had villas — were until recently off limits to residents of Qardaha, the former presidential dynasty's hometown in the mountains overlooking the coastal city of Latakia.
Nearby, Bashar Assad’s house was emptied by looters, who left the water taps running to flood it. At a villa belonging to three of his cousins, a father and his two young sons were removing pipes to sell the scrap metal. A gutted piano was tipped over on the floor.
While the Assads lived in luxury, most Qardaha residents — many, like Assad, members of the Alawite minority sect — survived on manual labor, low-level civil service jobs and farming to eke out a living. Many sent their sons to serve in the army, not out of loyalty to the government but because they had no other option.
“The situation was not what the rest of the Syrian society thought,” said Deeb Dayoub, an Alawite sheikh. “Everyone thought Qardaha was a city built on a marble rock and a square of aquamarine in every house," he said, referring to the trappings of wealth enjoyed by Assad's family.
In the city’s main street, a modest strip of small grocery stores and clothing shops, Ali Youssef, stood next to a coffee cart, gesturing with disdain. “This street is the best market and the best street in Qardaha and it’s full of potholes.”
Families resorted to eating bread dipped in oil and salt because they could not afford meat or vegetables, he said. Youssef said he dodged mandatory military service for two years, but eventually was forced to go.
“Our salary was 300,000 Syrian pounds,” a month, he said — just over $20. “We used to send it to our families to pay the rent or live and eat with it" while working jobs on the side to cover their own expenses.
"Very few people benefited from the former deposed regime,” Youssef said.
So far, residents said, the security forces made up of fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham — the main group in the coalition that unseated Assad, and which is now ruling the country — have been respectful toward them.
“The security situation is fine so far, it’s acceptable, no major issues,” said Mariam al-Ali, who was in the market with her daughter. “There were a few abuses ... but it was fixed.” She did not elaborate, but others said there had been scattered incidents of robberies and looting or threats and insults.
Al-Ali called Assad a “traitor,” but she remained circumspect about her Alawite community's position in the new Syria.
“The most important thing is that there should be no sectarianism, so there will be no more blood spilled,” she said.
Dayoub, the Alawite sheikh, described “a state of anticipation and caution among all citizens in this area, and in general among Alawites,” although he said fears have started to ease.
At the town’s municipal building, dozens of notables sat on bleachers discussing the country' s new reality and what they hoped to convey to the new leadership.
Much was centered around economic woes — retired public servants' salaries had not been paid, the price of fuel had risen, there was no public transportation in the area.
But others had larger concerns.
“We hope that in the next government or the new Syria, we will have rights and duties like any Syrian citizen — we are not asking for any more or less,” said Jaafar Ahmed, a doctoral student and community activist. “We don’t accept the curtailment of our rights because the regime was part of this component.”
Questions also loomed about the fate of the area's sons who had served in Assad's army.
Since the army's collapse in the face of the opposition advance, residents said several thousand young army recruits from Qardaha have gone missing. Some later turned up on lists of former soldiers being held at a detention center in Hama.
“These are young guys who are 22 or 23 and they never took part" in active combat, said Qais Ibrahim, whose nephews were among the missing. Over the past few years, active combat was largely frozen in the country's civil war. “We send our children to the army because we don’t have any other source of income.”
Um Jaafar, who gave only her nickname out of fear of reprisals, said the family had no information about the fate of her two sons, stationed with the army in Raqqa and Deir Ezzour, though one son's name later turned up on the list of those imprisoned in Hama.
“My children got the best grades in school, but I didn’t have the ability to send them to the university,” she said. “They went to the army just for a salary that was barely enough to cover their transportation costs.”
Syria's new authorities have set up “reconciliation centers” around the country where former soldiers can register, hand over their weapons and receive a “reconciliation ID” allowing them to move freely and safely in Syria for three months.
But Ahmed, the doctoral student, said he wants more. As the country attempts to unify and move on after nearly 14 years of civil war, he said, “We want either forgiveness for all or accountability for all.”
Ahmed acknowledged that during the war, “rural Latakia was responsible for some radical groups,” referring to pro-Assad militias accused of widespread abuses against civilians. But, he said, opposition groups also committed abuses.
“We hope that there will be either an open process of reconciliation ... or transitional justice in which all will be held accountable for their mistakes, from all parties," he said.
"We can’t talk about holding accountable one ... group but not another.”