One year ago, ISIL took Mosul, and the world started to take the radical Islamist movement more seriously. It was a turning point.
Government forces abandoned Iraq’s second-largest city, and with it a vast supply of US weapons and armoured vehicles. The jihadists seized around a third of Iraq last June. ISIL still holds Mosul.
Coinciding with this dark anniversary, a report by Amnesty International focuses on the “plight of Iraqi civilians caught in a spiral of horrific crimes by ISIL, and brutal revenge attacks by the now dominant government-backed militias.”
Although many fled, many who stayed celebrated the order the Salafist ISIL imposed — Sunni residents who had had enough of dysfunctional Shia-dominated Iraqi governance. But soon accounts emerged that the welcome swiftly wore out.
Amnesty’s report speaks of the ethnic and minority killings and retaliation, a vortex of sectarian violence committed “by all sides”, and the suffering of civilians.
The self-proclaimed Isla
