One informer said he hid the SIM card from his mobile phone in a water filter to avoid detection by the Islamic State. Another concealed his in a sack of rice and made calls to his Iraqi handlers from a basement.
They were among several hundred Mosul residents who provided information on Islamic State targets during the victorious nine-month battle for Iraq’s second-biggest city, Iraqi military and Kurdish intelligence officials said.
They included taxi drivers, Iraqi soldiers and defectors from the Islamic State.
Illustration: Tania Chou
Officials said that without their help, the fighting would have dragged on longer, snared in Mosul’s narrow alleys.
“I was really afraid the whole time, because you paid with blood, you paid with your life if you were caught,” said one of the informers, 30-year-old former Iraqi army sergeant Alaa Abdullah, who remained in Mosul after its capture by the Islamic State in 2014.
“My mother used to say: ‘You’re still young,’ but I’d tell her: ‘Every time I see a DAESH fighter, I get a gray hair,’” he said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. “And you can see all my grays now, from all that hatred and fear.”
The city, which was home to about 2 million people before the war, was liberated in July.
The Islamic State’s reversal seemed improbable in June 2014, when its fighters swept into Mosul. The militants were welcomed by many fellow Sunnis, the majority of the city’s population, who complained of injustices at the hands of Iraq’s Shiite-led government.
The Iraqi army capitulated and fled, leaving its weapons behind.
Mosul was the Islamic State’s most significant conquest in Iraq, part of what it called a “caliphate” that stretched into neighboring Syria.
In Mosul’s Great Mosque of al-Nuri, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared himself the head of the world’s Muslims in July 2014.
Yet, by the time Iraqi forces launched a massive ground assault to retake Mosul in October last year, backed by Kurdish fighters, Shiite militias and US airpower, many residents had turned against the group, which exerted brutal control. Its opponents were beheaded or shot.
Acts such as smoking a cigarette were punishable by 40 lashes, residents said.
In interviews with Reuters, nine Iraqi and Kurdish military officials, informers and their relatives detailed how their battle for Mosul unfolded. As Iraqi army commanders and US advisers were preparing the ground offensive, intelligence officers were recruiting informers, building alliances with the region’s Sunni tribes and infiltrating al-Baghdadi’s inner circle.
Iraqi intelligence had tested using informers in the successful operation to retake another Islamic State stronghold, Fallujah, in June last year. Now it was time to apply the tactic on a bigger scale in Mosul.
Reuters could not independently confirm every detail of the informers’ accounts, but key elements supplied by these sources, who mostly did not know each other, were consistent.
“We were working hard to penetrate networks and establish connections that would be beneficial once the military phase began, and it paid off,” senior Kurdish counterterrorism official Lahur Talabany said. “We were able to connect to people close enough to aid us in our efforts.”
Many people became informers because “they truly believed in the cause of eradicating the Islamic State,” Talabany said.
A few were motivated by money to put food on the table. Islamic State fighters defected from the militant group when they saw its downfall was “inevitable and imminent.”
Mosul residents interviewed by Reuters pointed to challenges ahead.
The people of the city might have rejected the Islamic State, but that does not mean they accept Baghdad’s rule, they said.
Distrust of the Shiite-led government, headed by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, runs deep among Mosul’s Sunnis. Some are enviously watching moves by Kurds in northern Iraq toward declaring an independent state.
SADDAM’S MEN
From early last year, Iraqi military intelligence began reaching out to possible informants and allies through intermediaries, Iraqi officials said.
Intelligence officers first turned to the Sunni tribes that had been instrumental in driving out the Islamic State’s precursor, al-Qaeda, in 2006 to 2007.
However, fear of the Islamic State was holding the tribes back, army intelligence officer Lieutenant Colonel Salah al-Kinani said.
For instance, one tribesman wanted a guarantee that the Islamic State would not burn him alive if he was caught.
Then, in August last year there was a breakthrough.
Al-Kinani and his men made contact with a close aide to al-Baghdadi, Ali al-Jabouri, also known as Abu Omar al-Jabouri, a former officer in former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard who had joined the Islamic State when it overran Mosul in 2014.
Saddam-era officers had been a powerful factor in the rise of the Islamic State, often motivated by a shared hatred of the Shiite-led government in Baghdad. However, some of these officers, al-Jabouri among them, had since grown disillusioned with the Islamic State’s brutal methods and the growing influence of foreign fighters who had flocked to Mosul.
An Iraqi intelligence officer began negotiating with al-Jabouri through members of his tribe, Kinani said.
After initially hesitating, al-Jabouri agreed to lead 60 men in a revolt against the Islamic State to coincide with the start of the army’s ground assault in October last year.
The Iraqi military would supply al-Jabouri with arms and ammunition. It gave al-Jabouri and his men assurances that they would not be prosecuted for past crimes.
However, the plot failed. The Islamic State became suspicious of a fighter loyal to al-Jabouri and seized his mobile phone, which revealed details of the plan to deliver arms and ammunition to houses inside Mosul, al-Kinani said.
Under torture, the fighter told all.
“DAESH succeeded in infiltrating al-Jabouri’s ring and executed him and almost all his men only a couple of months later,” al-Kinani said.
The Islamic State often tortured captives for weeks or months to extract information, officials said.
Its “courts” handed down death penalties.
LICENSE PLATES
While Iraqi intelligence officials were talking to al-Jabouri, they also began seeking out civilians in Mosul whose relatives had been killed by militants. They calculated that desire for revenge might make them willing recruits.
Mahmoud, a cab driver, was one such informer.
He said that the Islamic State had jailed his brother and cousin in July 2014 for giving the Iraqi army information on its movements in Mosul.
He never saw them again, he said.
“After they took my brother away, I wanted to get back at them,” said Mahmoud, who asked that his full name be withheld.
He eavesdropped on militants’ conversations in his cab. Dialing in from the basement of his home to an Iraqi security officer, he provided intelligence on buildings occupied by the militants, the location of car bombs and explosives factories.
“I used to take the SIM card from my phone and hide it in the sugar jar or a sack of rice,” Mahmoud said.
Abdullah said he went into hiding when the Islamic State took control of Mosul in 2014, rarely sleeping in the same place twice. As a former translator for US troops during the US occupation, he believed he was a target for the militants.
He had also spent time training cadets in the Shiite south and feared the Sunni hardliners would brand him an infidel.
Abdullah hid his telephone in a water filter. His brother, like Mahmoud, drove a taxi to make a living and was a rich source of information.
“DAESH fighters would ride in his cab and he would tell me what he heard,” Abdullah said.
Abdullah worked with police intelligence officer Ayad Jassim to put together a network of 30 informants in towns and villages near Mosul.
Jassim, who was based in the town of Qayara, south of Mosul, confirmed the account.
He said the informants provided details about militants’ movements, their vehicle license plates and where they met.
As a result, airstrikes by the US-led coalition killed as many as 50 militants in some weeks, he added.
“The success of the informers created an atmosphere of mistrust in DAESH. Militants were suspicious of each other,” said Jassim, who said he lost 27 members of his family to the Islamic State.
A US official said the Islamic State was “better at making enemies than they were at grabbing territory.”
Recognizing the threat from informers, the Islamic State made an example of captured spies.
When the group caught Ibrahim and Idrees Nasir breaking a ban on using cellphones, they discovered the men were in contact with Iraqi security forces by dialing the last number they had called, their cousin Nawfal Youssef said.
They were killed with a bullet to the head.
“They hung them by telephone polls on a main street for 10 days. They stuck paper signs on their chests which said: ‘This man is a traitor. You will suffer the same fate if you cooperate with the infidel Iraqi security forces,’” Youssef said.
DEFECTIONS
The conquest of Fallujah, 60km west of Baghdad, in June last year was decisive in the war against the militants, Iraqi officials said.
Fallujah had been the first city to fall to the Islamic State, in January 2014. With its recapture, Iraqis increasingly believed the group could be defeated.
The battle followed a pattern that would become familiar in the months ahead: Iraq’s counterterrorism service, trained by the US military, spearheaded the assault. Airstrikes by the US-led coalition supported the advance. Shiite militias played an important role.
The Iraqi army’s progress on the battlefield last year encouraged increasing numbers of Islamic State militants to betray their leaders, a top commander in the Mosul campaign, General Najm al-Jabouri, said.
The capture of Qayara airbase and town about 60km south of Mosul in July last year was an important moment.
A militant who handled the Islamic State’s communications contacted the army through an intermediary to offer his services, said his handler, Major Sahab al-Jabouri.
Given the codename Eagle 1, he was taught how to evade capture. Eagle 1 texted Sahab al-Jabouri with details about Islamic State leaders and telephone numbers used by the militants.
Intelligence he supplied helped the army take several towns and led them to a mass grave in the town of Tal Afar, west of Mosul, Sahab al-Jabouri said.
The opening of a new front northwest of Mosul in May triggered more defections, Iraqi military officials said.
Militants offered information in exchange for clemency. The arrangement provided vital intelligence about Islamic State leaders, communications and ammunitions stores.
“It accelerated the battle,” said Najm al-Jabouri, the senior commander in the Mosul campaign. “They told us where the car bombs were and we would strike them before they hit our forces. Their information helped us a lot, especially in identifying where their leaders were.”
Once inside Mosul, US-trained counterterrorism troops cleared militants from the narrow streets. US airpower picked out targets from above.
UNCERTAIN VICTORY
Some Iraqi officials conceded that questions remain over the long-term ability of the main Iraqi army to retain control of territory it has gained with the help of US airpower, Shiite militias and Kurdish fighters. Compared with US-trained soldiers in Iraq’s highly capable counterterrorism service, the bulk of the army is ill-equipped and lacks discipline.
Counterterrorism troops had “the most updated American weapons and gear costing up to US$16,000,” al-Kinani said. “For ordinary soldiers, we give them a suit and vest that cost only US$100.”
Despite its victory, Baghdad’s Shiite-led government cannot count on the loyalty of Mosul’s predominantly Sunni population, said Sheikh Talib al-Shammari, leader of a powerful Sunni tribe that contributed fighters and intelligence to the battle against Islamic State.
Mosul’s Sunnis want more autonomy, he said.
“Mosul residents should have a say in how to administrate their own city without being treated as second-class citizens. We will have zero tolerance for any attempt from Baghdad to return Mosul to being governed by armed force; we will resist and find a million ways to ask for our own autonomy,” al-Shammari said.
Government adviser Zuhair al-Chalabi said talk of autonomy was “the language of losers. Mosul is proud of its genuine Iraqi identity and no one will accept this language.”
Mosul is not alone in challenging Baghdad’s authority.
In the north of the country, Iraq’s Kurds are intent on building an independent state. They voted overwhelmingly for independence in a referendum on Sept 25.
Baghdad has said such moves are unconstitutional.
Al-Abadi’s government insists its focus is on ending sectarian strife.
The US is afraid a fragmentation of Iraq could further destabilize the Middle East, while Shiite Iran worries a breakup would diminish its influence. Iran holds sway over the Baghdad government and Iraq’s Shiite militias.
For some people in Mosul, Iraq’s wrecked economy and rampant corruption are the most pressing problems.
Transparency International ranked Iraq 166 out of 176 in last year’s Corruption Perceptions Index.
Standing near a bridge between east and west Mosul, a student informer, codename Salah al-Iraqi, doubted prosperity would return to his city.
“If we got rid of our leaders and political parties, Iraq would be much better off,” he said. “The whole system needs to be overhauled.”
Abu Hassan, a former soldier and informant, was also frustrated. He used his work as a cab driver to gather intelligence for the Iraqi military.
He said his handlers promised that he could have his old army job and a monthly salary of US$1,000 back when Mosul was freed.
However, when he went to Baghdad to reclaim his job, he was sent packing, he said.
These days, Abu Hassan is bitter. He has been making barely US$7 per day driving his cab. The Iraqi Ministry of Defense dismissed his complaints.
“He should have done this to help his country and not for a job. This is the difference between real soldiers and mercenaries,” Lieutenant Colonel Mahdi Ameer said.
Additional reporting by Isabel Coles, Goran Tomasevic
and John Walcott
Because much of what former US president Donald Trump says is unhinged and histrionic, it is tempting to dismiss all of it as bunk. Yet the potential future president has a populist knack for sounding alarums that resonate with the zeitgeist — for example, with growing anxiety about World War III and nuclear Armageddon. “We’re a failing nation,” Trump ranted during his US presidential debate against US Vice President Kamala Harris in one particularly meandering answer (the one that also recycled urban myths about immigrants eating cats). “And what, what’s going on here, you’re going to end up in World War
Earlier this month in Newsweek, President William Lai (賴清德) challenged the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to retake the territories lost to Russia in the 19th century rather than invade Taiwan. He stated: “If it is for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t [the PRC] take back the lands occupied by Russia that were signed over in the treaty of Aigun?” This was a brilliant political move to finally state openly what many Chinese in both China and Taiwan have long been thinking about the lost territories in the Russian far east: The Russian far east should be “theirs.” Granted, Lai issued
On Sept. 2, Elbridge Colby, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal called “The US and Taiwan Must Change Course” that defends his position that the US and Taiwan are not doing enough to deter the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from taking Taiwan. Colby is correct, of course: the US and Taiwan need to do a lot more or the PRC will invade Taiwan like Russia did against Ukraine. The US and Taiwan have failed to prepare properly to deter war. The blame must fall on politicians and policymakers
Gogoro Inc was once a rising star and a would-be unicorn in the years prior to its debut on the NASDAQ in 2022, as its environmentally friendly technology and stylish design attracted local young people. The electric scooter and battery swapping services provider is bracing for a major personnel shakeup following the abrupt resignation on Friday of founding chairman Horace Luke (陸學森) as chief executive officer. Luke’s departure indicates that Gogoro is sinking into the trough of unicorn disillusionment, with the company grappling with poor financial performance amid a slowdown in demand at home and setbacks in overseas expansions. About 95