"Have you noticed that our caps have got Skulls on them?"
Showing posts with label #daesh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #daesh. Show all posts
Monday, February 23, 2015
The previous ISIL #Daeshbags - Mitchell and Webb "Are we the baddies"
Sunday, February 22, 2015
CNN GOOFs up on Video of location for Damascus in Syria They have it where Aleppo is ?
CNN GOOFs on Video of location for Damascus in Syria They have it where Aleppo is ?
Their article and my screen shot below shows the screw up Damascus should be in the Southwest of Syria not the Northwest
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Start here: The fight against ISIS on Friday
Up to 25,000 Iraqi troops: An Iraqi ground offensive to push ISIS out of Mosul is now expected to begin in April or May, a U.S. military official said Thursday. Up to 25,000 Iraqi troops could be involved, the official said. The attack will include five Iraqi army brigades that will be trained by the United States and Peshmerga, or Kurdish, forces that will try to cut off any ISIS escape routes north and west of the city, the official said. ISIS seized Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, in June. There's one big question lingering: What role, if any, could U.S. troops play on the ground as Iraqi forces try to retake it?
CNN GOOFs up on Video location of Damascus #Syria #FSA #TwitterKurds @istrategic1 @steven_metz http://t.co/bTei2E6KJj pic.twitter.com/8JCDqWA9N0
— Counterinsurgency (@COIN_Syria_Iraq) February 22, 2015Monday, February 16, 2015
DAMASCUS: SAA WIPES OUT FOREIGN TERRORISTS; ‘ALLOOSH TRIES NEGOTIATIONS THROUGH U.N. ENVOY; KOSOVAR ISIS TERRORIST LEADER KILLED
DAMASCUS:
Doumaa: You know ‘Alloosh is finished by what he does. He has been in contact with DeMistura’s aides for the last 3 days in an effort to restart negotiations with the government over his planned escape from the war he so assiduously conducted to resettle in Saudi Arabia with his father. The U.N. aides have been reporting this to the Syrian Foreign Ministry but were told the matter was not within their bailiwick and the matter should be communicated to the Ministry of Defense. When that took place, 2 days ago, the aides were told that the only out for ‘Alloosh was in a pine coffin. There would be no talks with the terrorist murderer.
As these events were taking place, the circle around his headquarters is growing smaller and the noose is tightening. He now knows his hours are limited – that he will soon be entering the gates of Hell to pay for his crimes.
Khaan Al-Shaykh: The Syrian Army and militiamen eradicated a grouping of vermin belonging to the Liwaa` Al-Haqq and Liwaa` Al-Furqaan, all subfranchisees of Nusra. They were trying to cross the Salaam Highway from the Four Seasons Avenue in the Al-Khammaara District.
“Al-Jibaawi” (Id pending. Leader of Furqaan)
“Abu ‘Ubayda Hijaazi” (Id pending)
Rashaad Abu Taahaa
Usaamaa Tahaawi
Another 4 could not be identified.
_________________________________________________________________________________
AL-HASAKA:
ISIS is losing terrorists by the hundreds and is forced to start training boys 15 years and under. Their enlistees are drying up. Don’t believe the CIA’s lies about 20,000 foreign terrorists rushing to the aid of ISIS. It’s just the opposite. We would like to point out, also, that desertions and defections from the Syrian Army are down to zero as of 3 months ago.
The Syrian Army has now liberated the following villages:
Read more at http://www.syrianperspective.com/2015/02/damascus-saa-wipes-out-foreign-terrorists-alloosh-tries-negotiations-through-u-n-envoy-kosovar-isis-terrorist-leader-killed.html#hVac7bxm6bkw6zFw.99
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Q&A: Why Sunni Extremists Are Destroying Ancient Religious Sites in Mosul
The Islamic State is demolishing tombs, statues, mosques, and shrines of importance to Christians, Muslims, and Jews.
A boy bikes past the Prophet Jirjis mosque in Mosul, Iraq, on July 27, 2014. The Muslim shrine was destroyed by militants who overran the city in June.
PUBLISHED AUGUST 2, 2014
Mosul has long been known for its religious diversity. Iraq's second largest city has been home to Persians, Arabs, Turks, and Christians of all denominations since it was first believed to have been settled in 6000 B.C. The ruins of Ninevah, one of the greatest cities in antiquity and former seat of the Assyrian Empire, lie within its modern city limits.
But now the Islamic State (IS) has arrived.
The Sunni extremists of the IS, previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), have been working to erase evidence of that diverse history since they seized the ancient city on June 10. (Related: "Iraq: 1,200 Years of Turbulent History in Five Maps.")
By some estimates 60,000 Christians lived in Mosul a decade ago, a number that may have been halved over the past decade of turmoil but could now be close to zero following an order by the IS to convert, leave, or die. This month reportedly marks the first time in 1,600 years in Mosul that no Sunday Mass has been held. (Related: "Iraq Crisis: 'Ancient Hatreds Turning Into Modern Realities.'")
The IS is also trying to eradicate visual evidence of belief systems that don't follow its strict interpretation of Islam. The Sunni extremist fighters have removed or destroyed more than a dozen tombs, statues, mosques, and shrines—including shrines that hold meaning for Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike—such as the site believed to be the tomb of the biblical prophet Jonah, which was wired with explosives and detonated last week. The shrine of Prophet Seth, considered to be the third son of Adam and Eve, has also been demolished.
Archaeologists, historians, and many in the local populace are distraught. Iraqi-British archaeologist Lamia Al-Gailani Werr is an honorary senior research associate at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, and a senior researcher with the Department of the Languages and Culture of Near and Middle East at the University of London. Born in Baghdad and educated in Britain, Al-Gailani Werr has worked extensively in Iraq, previously serving as a consultant to Iraq's Ministry of Culture for Baghdad's Iraq Museum.
She spoke with National Geographic about the physical and spiritual heritage being lost in Mosul today.
Were you at the Baghdad museum when it was looted in 2003, and are there similarities between then and what is happening now in Mosul?
I went to Baghdad in June of 2003, after the looting. There is a difference between what happened then in Baghdad and now in Mosul—no standing building was destroyed in 2003. Back then it was the looting of antiquities from the Iraq Museum and the illegal looting of ancient sites. In Mosul, it is standing and mostly religious buildings that are the targets, and many of are of great archaeological heritage value.
Mosul is one of the oldest cities in Iraq. Ninevah is now part of the city; it used to be just outside Mosul. During the 9th century onward, Mosul was the seat for all the Christian religious movements and studies. Just outside the city is one of perhaps the oldest monasteries in the world—Mar Mattai, or St. Matthews.
Mar Mattai, one of the oldest monasteries in the world, is in danger from the Islamic State's systematic attack on religious sites.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL RUNKEL, IMAGEBROKER VIA CORBIS
Is that monastery safe so far?
I have not heard anything about Mar Mattai, so it could be still safe. Some say it dates back earlier than the fourth century, to the second century.
The Assyrian Empire dates to the first millennium B.C., but there are a lot of sites within the area that go back 10,000 years. Mosul is absolutely rich with archaeological sites. Rich with people too: The people there count themselves as being in the center of the world. The people of Mosul are very proud of their city. For Christianity, the Eastern Church in Mosul was really the church that spread Christianity to the east. Islam was also there from the beginning, when it came through Iraq in the seventh century.
Did Mosul change significantly after the U.S. intervention in Iraq?
Mosul was always diverse. There are several sects living there, different offshoots of Islam or Christianity. One is called Shabak, which is an offshoot of Shiite Islam; they've been living there quite freely, quite peacefully together. But in 2003 the fundamentalists did start having a foot in Mosul.
I remember when I was in Baghdad in 2003 and 2004, I heard there were streets in Mosul that people called Kandahar [the religious and political base of the Taliban in Afghanistan] because there were all these people who were fundamentalists and were dressing in that Islamic style.
Iraqi elderly men leave Mosul's Al-Noori Al-Kabeer mosque on July 9. The leader of the IS purportedly delivered a sermon there on July 4.
PHOTOGRAPH BY EPA
Have you visited the sites that have been destroyed?
I went to visit the archaeological sites in 2001. We saw Nabi Yunus [the tomb of Jonah], which has a mosque that has been renewed again and again. The minaret of Nabi Yunus was only from 1924 because the old one fell down. Nabi Yunus has been renewed quite often—during Saddam's time they did a lot of renovations. Mosul has a number of these shrines that go back to the 9th, 10th century, especially 12th and 13th century.
The shrine of Jonah, isn't that something of value not just to Jews and Christians but also to Muslims?
Yes, it has—or it had—a mosque over it. It's difficult to say when it was built, but Nabi Yunus stands on top of a mound that was probably an Assyrian temple. After the Assyrians it became a Zoroastrian temple. Then it became a church, and afterwards it became a mosque. In the 1990s, the State Board of Antiquity and Heritage did excavate at the bottom of this mound and they found the gates from an Assyrian palace.
Why is the IS destroying places that are also important to Islam?
They are shrines. The IS, or the fundamentalist Salafist people, don't think that it is right to go and worship a dead person. They are absolutely against that. So what they've been doing literally is destroying any shrine. Not mosques, but shrines. They did destroy mosques or smaller mosques that belong to the Shiites, but they consider the Shiites as not religious, as not Islamic.
The Shiite mosques are called husseiniya. The IS has been destroying them systematically, not only in Mosul but also other places. But then the minute they got to Mosul, they demolished a shrine which is from the 12th century. It was that of Ali ibn al-Athir, a historian and writer from that period who was accused even then of being an apostate.
Aren't they also, like the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, attacking relics that depict a human face or form?
We don't have that in these sort of shrines in Iraq, these human forms. That's mostly in Christian places. But they could destroy these in Christian places if they get to them.
The extremists also tried—and so far have failed—to destroy thecrooked minaret of Mosul, which is said to be 840 years old.
Yes, it is still standing. Next to it there's another shrine, and they presumably were intending to destroy it. I heard that they put all these explosives around it and asked the people who live around it to evacuate their houses.
But the local people have shown complete opposition to them, and there's another militia that came in and surrounded the place so the IS people left. So it's been spared for the time being. We don't know what will happen next. This is the most frightening thing, that minaret.
People walk on the rubble of Nabi Yunus, or tomb of the biblical prophet Jonah, which was destroyed by the IS on July 24.
PHOTOGRAPH BY AP
Why is that so frightening?
Because it really is more iconic to Mosul than even the tomb of Jonah. It's like the leaning tower of Pisa. All the Iraqis and the people of Mosul are so proud of it. It's a beautiful minaret. The Hadba Minaret is built of brick, which is all intricately decorated and is from about the 12th-13th century.
Why is the minaret crooked?
It is something to do with the geological ground—a structural fault. Most minarets in Iraq, and especially in Mosul, tend with time to lean slightly. That is one reason why minarets are always being replaced. However, the Hadba is still standing after so many centuries and has become the icon of Mosul.
What is the cultural value of these minarets and shrines?
They are very important. If we're talking about Islamic shrines, quite a number of them have very distinctive architectural domes. Because most of the domes in Iraq are built with brick, not many of them have survived. In Mosul, however, there are quite a number of them and they're being destroyed. From an architectural point of view, it's a great pity.
Has there been any other time in Mosul's history where its diversity has been so threatened?
Never like now where there is an evacuation of all of them [the Christians]. That was the lovely thing about Iraq—we lived all of us together, and it is politics that has interfered. This time it is fundamentalist Islam. I'm very angry about this. The Jews were in Iraq from Babylonian captivity. And then politics let them leave from the 1950s onwards, and now the Christians are going. I remember as a child my father had three childhood friends. One was a Jew, one was a Christian, one was a Muslim. That gives you a symbol of what it was like. (Related: "What Does It Mean to Be Iraqi Anymore?")
I also have an English friend in Mosul whose husband has lived in Mosul for over 20 years. He says he's had tea and coffee and Coca-Colas with every single Christian sect in the world. Because they were all there. This is how it was. I honestly can't believe that its going like this. It is a great pity.
PHOTOGRAPH BY AP
U.S. Estimates 20,000 Foreign Fighters Heading to Syria, Iraq
At Least 3,400 From Western Nations Among Those Hoping to Join Extremist Groups
WASHINGTON—Foreign fighters are streaming into Syria and Iraq in unprecedented numbers to join Islamic State or other extremist groups, including at least 3,400 from Western nations among 20,000 from around the world, U.S. intelligence officials say in an updated estimate of a top terrorism concern.
Intelligence agencies now believe that as many as 150 Americans have tried and some have succeeded in reaching in the Syrian war zone, officials told the House Homeland Security Committee in testimony prepared for delivery on Wednesday. Some of those Americans were arrested en route, some died in the area and a small number are still fighting with extremists.
The testimony and other data were obtained Tuesday by the Associated Press.
Nick Rasmussen, chief of the National Counterterrorism Center, said the rate of foreign fighter travel to Syria is without precedent, far exceeding the rate of foreigners who went to wage jihad in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen or Somalia at any other point in the past 20 years.
U.S. officials fear that some of the foreign fighters, who come from 90 countries, will return undetected to their homes in Europe or the U.S. to mount terrorist attacks. At least one of the men responsible for the attack on a satirical magazine in Paris had spent time with Islamic extremists in Yemen.
Meanwhile, the White House circulated a proposal Tuesday that would have Congress authorize the U.S. military to fight Islamic State terrorists over the next three years. A formal request for legislation is expected on Wednesday.
Also at the White House, President Barack Obama praised Kayla Jean Mueller, the young American whose death was confirmed Tuesday. Mueller died while in Islamic State hands, though the group blamed a Jordanian airstrike, and Mr. Obama said, “No matter how long it takes, the United States will find and bring to justice the terrorists who are responsible for Kayla’s captivity and death.”
As for foreign fighters, officials acknowledge it has been hard to track the Americans and Europeans who have made it to Syria, where Islamic State group is the dominant force trying to overthrow the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The U.S. Embassy in Syria is closed, and the CIA has no permanent presence on the ground.
“Once in Syria, it is very difficult to discern what happens there,” according to Wednesday’s prepared testimony of Michael Steinbach, the FBI’s assistant director for counterterrorism. “This lack of clarity remains troubling.”
The 20,000-fighters estimate is up from 19,000, Mr. Rasmussen will tell the House committee, according to prepared testimony. The number of Americans or U.S. residents who have gone or tried to go is up to 150 from 50 a year ago and 100 in the fall.
Rep. Michael McCaul, the Texas Republican who chairs the committee, said in his prepared remarks that the Syrian war had created “the largest convergence of Islamist terrorists in world history.” Sustained bombing by a U.S.-led coalition hasn't stopped the inflow, he noted.
Rep. McCaul’s committee staff compiled from public sources a list of 18 U.S. citizens or residents who joined or attempted to join the Islamic State group, and 18 others who tried to or succeeded in joining other violent Islamic groups.
U.S. intelligence officials don't make public their estimate of how many Americans currently are fighting in Syria and Iraq. In September, FBI director James Comey said it was “about a dozen.”
—Copyright 2015 Associated Press
Iraq Situation Report: February 9, 2015
The deployment of Iraqi Shi’a militias to urban centers in Anbar was considered an important step in preventing the fall of Ramadi and other areas in the province to ISIS. - See more click here:
Link to "Institute for Study of War" documents Regarding Iraq.
Link to "Institute for Study of War" documents Regarding Iraq.
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
The jihadi who never was
Michael Muhammad Knight is the author of 9 books, including Tripping with Allah: Islam, Drugs, and Writing.
Iraqi Shiite militia fighters hold the Islamic State flag as they celebrate after breaking the siege of Amerli by Islamic State militants. (Youssef Boudlal/Reuters)
The Islamic State just released a gruesome new beheading video, again helmed by a western-bred Jihadist. As often happens, I received messages asking for explanation.
You see, I’m the jihadi who never was.
Twenty years ago, I ditched my Catholic high school in upstate New York to study at a Saudi-funded madrassa in Pakistan. A fresh convert, I jumped at the chance to live at a mosque and study Qur’an all day.
This was in the mid-1990s, during an escalation of the Chechen resistance against Russian rule. After class, we’d turn on the television and watch feeds of destruction and suffering. The videos were upsetting. So upsetting that soon I found myself thinking about abandoning my religious education to pick up a gun and fight for Chechen freedom.
It wasn’t a verse I’d read in our Qur’an study circles that made me want to fight, but rather my American values. I had grown up in the Reagan ’80s. I learned from G.I. Joe cartoons to (in the words of the theme song) “fight for freedom, wherever there’s trouble.” I assumed that individuals had the right — and the duty — to intervene anywhere on the planet where they perceived threats to freedom, justice and equality.
For me, wanting to go to Chechnya wasn’t reducible to my “Muslim rage” or “hatred for the West.” This may be hard to believe, but I thought about the war in terms of compassion. Like so many Americans moved by their love of country to serve in the armed forces, I yearned to fight oppression and protect the safety and dignity of others. I believed that this world was in bad shape. I placed my faith in somewhat magical solutions claiming that the world could be fixed by a renewal of authentic Islam and a truly Islamic system of government. But I also believed that working toward justice was more valuable than my own life.
Eventually, I decided to stay in Islamabad. And the people who eventually convinced me not to fight weren’t the kinds of Muslims propped up in the media as liberal, West-friendly reformers. They were deeply conservative; some would call them “intolerant.” In the same learning environment in which I was told that my non-Muslim mother would burn in eternal hellfire, I was also told that I could achieve more good in the world as a scholar than as a soldier, and that I should strive to be more than a body in a ditch. These traditionalists reminded me of Muhammad’s statement that the ink of scholars was holier than the blood of martyrs.
The media often draw a clear line between our imagined categories of “good” and “bad” Muslims. My brothers in Pakistan would have made that division much more complicated than some could imagine.These men whom I perceived as superheroes of piety, speaking to me as the authorized voice of the tradition itself, said that violence was not the best that I could offer.
Some kids in my situation seem to have received different advice.
It’s easy to assume that religious people, particularly Muslims, simply do things because their religions tell them to. But when I think about my impulse at age 17 to run away and become a fighter for the Chechen rebels, I consider more than religious factors. My imagined scenario of liberating Chechnya and turning it into an Islamic state was a purely American fantasy, grounded in American ideals and values. Whenever I hear of an American who flies across the globe to throw himself into freedom struggles that are not his own, I think, What a very, very American thing to do.
And that’s the problem. We are raised to love violence and view military conquest as a benevolent act. The American kid who wants to intervene in another nation’s civil war owes his worldview as much to American exceptionalism as to jihadist interpretations of scripture. I grew up in a country that glorifies military sacrifice and feels entitled to rebuild other societies according to its own vision. I internalized these values before ever thinking about religion. Before I even knew what a Muslim was, let alone concepts such as “jihad” or an “Islamic state,” my American life had taught me that that’s what brave men do.
Monday, February 2, 2015
Map: Foreign fighters to Iraq and Syria has surged October 2014 January 2015
The number of foreign fighters traveling to Iraq and Syria, mostly to fight alongside the Islamic State, has grown to 20,000 — up more than 5,000 from previous estimates made in October, according to the International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence (ICSR).
These new figures are alarming, inasmuch as they indicate that the conflict has attracted more foreign militants than the conflict in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The last time this many militants traveled to fight in a foreign conflict was in 1945.
Another key takeaway from the new data is that, at 4,000, a fifth of the foreign fighters come from Western nations. While estimates from countries in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, fluctuated a little, there were huge increases in fighters coming from European nations.
France previously accounted for 412 fighters traveling to Iraq and Syria. The new data show that number has almost tripled, to 1,200. The Netherlands, Britain and Austria all accounted for about 100 additional fighters.
Belgium, a much smaller nation, went from 296 to 440 and has the highest number of fighters per capita of any Western nation. The country has been "experiencing the consequences of what critics call decades of ineffectiveness in integrating immigrants, including many Muslims."According to a story by my colleague Michael Birnbaum:
Click here to see read the rest of this story ......[T]he country faces particular challenges because........
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Syria demands action against terrorist acts’ perpetrators and backers
Damascus, SANA – Syria demanded on Tuesday action to bring the perpetrators of the terrorist acts in the
country and their regional and international backers to account.
country and their regional and international backers to account.
A particular reference was made by the Foreign and Expatriates Ministry in two identical letters addressed to the UN top officials on to the intense terrorist rocket attacks that targeted the city of Damascus last Sunday.
A hail of rocket and mortar shells fired by terrorist organizations poured down on Damascus two days ago. The shells targeted residential neighborhoods indiscriminately, leaving a trail of casualties and destruction in their wake.
The two letters, addressed to Chairman of the Security Council and the UN Secretary General, cited the firing of over 40 107 mm rocket shells, Katyusha rockets and mortar rounds on neighborhoods in the capital that are home to houses, hospitals, schools and headquarters of embassies and international organizations.
The Foreign Ministry demanded condemnation of these terrorist acts and taking measures to hold to account the perpetrators and all the regional and international forces and countries standing behind them, citing particularly Saudi Arabia, Turkey, France and Qatar.
It referred that the so-called “Islam Army” terrorist group and its leader Zahran Alloush took credit of the rocket attacks, a threat of which was made clearly evident on social media websites several hours before the firing started.
The Foreign Ministry made it clear that the attacks came as a response to the increasing pace of local reconciliations achieved in the country, the army-secured departure of thousands of civilians trapped in terrorists-controlled areas in Eastern Ghouta and most recently the beginning of the preparatory talks on the crisis in the Russian capital.
It is more than evident, the Ministry said, that the armed terrorist groups are bent on trying to foil any attempt at reaching a peaceful solution to the crisis in Syria.
The success of such peaceful and political efforts, it added, threatens the plots of known regional and international forces which are being carried out on the ground by these Wahhabi-doctrinated terrorist groups.
The Ministry’s letters blamed countries inside and outside the region for the continuation of terrorist attacks which Syrian provinces have been subjected to for four years now.
Chief among those countries, it stressed, are Saudi Arabia and France, which “have supplied the terrorists with material and logistic support as well as political and media cover.”
While dismissing these terrorist acts as “cowardly”, the Foreign Ministry affirmed that they will affect neither the resilience of the Syrian people nor their “heroic defending of their independence, sovereignty, freedom and dignity.”
It called upon the countries which still describe these terrorist groups as “modern opposition” to refrain from that and acknowledge the real designation of those groups as “terrorist organizations”, including the so-called “Islam Army”.
The Ministry cited in this context a recent report by the UN Secretary General on the implementation of resolutions 2139, 2165 and 2191 in which the UN Chief referred to the agreement of the notorious Jabhat al-Nusra and the other terrorist groups of “Ahrar al-Sham” and “Islam Army” to form unified leadership council, operations room and Sharia court in al-Qalamoun area.
The Ministry voiced Syria’s demand that these terrorist groups be included in the Security Council’s lists of terrorist organizations given their growing threat that has spread to the entire world.
Haifa Said
Mosul diaries: Poisoned by water
Illness from drinking contaminated water is just the latest affliction affecting civilians in Mosul, months after the Iraqi city was taken over by Islamic State (IS) militants. IS took control of Mosul in June, introducing a strict regime in line with its radical interpretation of Islamic law.
In a series of diary entries, Mosul residents describe life under IS. Their names have been changed to protect their identities.
19 December 2014
From Mays
With the mobile phone network still out of action, it was with extreme difficulty that my sister let me know that she was extremely sick.
I rushed to her house on the other side of one of the city's bridges. Peering at the Tigris, I said to my husband: "Even this river is unclear! When will our situation clear up so that our water clears again?"
Eventually we reached my sister's house, but she was in extreme pain. We rushed her to the city's hospital, which was extremely overcrowded, with people with similar symptoms.
As soon as we inquired, we were told there was an outbreak of poisoning across the city. The only common factor was the water.
'Harder and harder'
It turned out my sister was suffering from water poisoning, mainly from the water that is pumped into the city from the eastern and western pumping stations.
With water purifiers scarce, the stations had been pumping water into the houses through the pipes, without purification or filtration.
I saw one of our relatives in the hospital - they were also suffering from water poisoning. It dawned on me that the state of the water in the Tigris that I saw crossing that bridge was the same as when it reached our homes.
This was all followed by a sharp rise in the price of bottled water. One of two water bottling factories in the city is closed due to the owner's absence, and the other is working with limited capacity - plus roads to Kurdistan, where you can buy bottled water, are all blocked.
As we returned home I was agitated thinking about my sister and the whole situation. I know that IS does not care whether our water is filtered or not, so I found myself trying to filter our own water at home mainly by boiling it.
This has become another chore to add to the list, as life under the Islamic State becomes harder and harder.
From Mays
Our suffering due to the water shortage has turned into a state of fear that won't go away.
My husband goes on to the roof every day to see if the water tanks have been filled by the electrical pump from the main water supply.
On one unforgettably terrifying night, I decided to go on to the roof with my husband to help him.
We suddenly heard a loud explosion followed by loud voices from the nearby street.
We quietly and carefully shifted to peer at the road where we heard the explosion and the voices.
We saw a group of Islamic State fighters shooting in the air, and I feared for my husband because they were banging on doors searching for men in the area in order to question them.
Trembling with fear
It turned out that the explosion was caused by a bomb planted on one of the IS vehicles.
Within a few seconds the terrifying sound of fighter jets filled the sky, and they starting bombing IS fighters.
IS vehicles were full of ammunition and we kept hearing explosions for over three hours.
I was trembling with fear for my husband and my children and dreading the sound of the doorbell. But thankfully the aerial bombardment caused a great deal of confusion among IS fighters, and they didn't knock on our door.
When the sun rose we managed to see the extent of the damage to the houses and the street caused by the bombing.
We decided to leave our house and stay at a relative's place for a few days because I was afraid for my family.
From Nizar
We have been shocked by the outage of the Asiacell mobile phone network, the main provider in the city. It has left me in a terrible state because, like everyone else, my business depends on communication. In fact, everyone in Mosul depends on it for that matter.
People gather on a hill in Mosul to try to get a mobile phone signal
A few hours after the network went down, others such as Korek, Zain and Fanous followed.
It's left the city in a complete void, like we've gone back to the dark ages.
We have to rely on people around us and local internet providers for communication.
'Not knowing'
Everybody was confused by what happened and we were all asking each other, trying to find out when the service would be back. Some blamed the blackout on the government in Baghdad and others on Islamic State - either way, the city is lost.
The worst part is there is no real alternative, so if you need to speak to someone you'd have to go to find them at their home or workplace, assuming they were there in the first place.
That happened to me as I was trying to locate a merchant I do business with, who in turn was looking for another person to settle some financial accounts, and I waited and waited, but without success.
I then returned home to take my sick father to the doctor's clinic, also not knowing whether the doctor would be there or not. I was, however, lucky and managed to sort out my family and work affairs - albeit with great difficulty.
We don't know how long this will last or whether we should start getting used to it as a way of life.
From Faisal
My mother called me asking me whether I could buy her a gas canister to replace the one at home as it had run out.
I took the empty canister and drove to a shop downtown, only to discover that the price for a replacement was more than 60 Iraqi dinars ($50).
I was in complete shock. Before IS took control, the price was barely $7, but with IS it just kept on rising.
I came back home thinking how would I ever be able to afford it given our tight financial situation. After debating with my mother, we decided it was better if I went back and bought one anyway as life at our home depends on such a necessary item, for cooking, for example.
Forced to shut
I went back the next morning to discover that its price had gone up to $100 - and there were no canisters for sale in sight!
I rushed back home in a panic, but decided I'd better buy some lunch from a restaurant on the way because we didn't have fuel to cook.
The restaurant was shut. When I asked why, I was told the owner couldn't afford the ever-increasing cost of new gas canisters - so he had to shut the whole place down!
Thirteen restaurant employees were laid off - that's 13 families who can no longer earn bread, all because of the price of a gas canister. In fact, most restaurants have had to shut, apart from a few which have a stock of gas.
Others have resorted to burning wood, using very expensive electric heaters, or stoves that run on oil.
We are tired of this situation - there is no clean water, fuel or gas to cook our food.
How can we continue living under this caliphate?
- Iraq's second biggest city
- Overrun by Islamic State in June 2014
- Home to about 1.8 million people before IS takeover, when some 500,000 fled
- Majority Sunni Arab population, with Kurdish, Turkmen and Christian minorities
From Faisal
I washed and got ready to go to Friday prayers, and to hear the imam address the congregation.
In his Friday sermon, the imam spoke about the value of the gold dinar in the ancient eras of Islam and about how trade and economy flourished at the time.
He said that a group of pious and highly religious men from IS had decided to mint a new gold coin and new coins made of silver and copper in addition to new paper notes which will be used in the markets in the near future.
He also said that another group of pious IS youth organised an advertising campaign to announce the use of the new currency.
The aim was to make the new Islamic dinar a force to be reckoned with against the US dollar used by the infidels, as the imam said, in what turned out to be the same sermon forced by IS on all the mosques.
Panic-selling
I went home feeling worried and confused. I have business and bank accounts and bank dealings with other countries. How can I use this new currency which is only recognised in IS territory?!
The IS dinar was going to replace the official Iraqi currency and use of the dollar was going to be banned. I didn't know what to do, and I sat with a group of friends to discuss what would happen to our money and to our business.
Everybody agreed they would exchange the existing Iraqi currency for US dollars or for gold jewellery.
We all agreed that the IS plan was not religious or ideological as they said, but merely a scheme to rob us of our money and savings.
The next morning a state of chaos gripped the market as everybody was trying to get rid of the Iraqi dinar and to buy dollars or gold.
From Faisal
Once upon a time in our land, which is rich with water and oil, we used to have a big supply of water and electricity. However, now in the time of the IS caliphate, we lead the most difficult life imaginable.
We don't have water because the supply station does not work most of the time due to a power shortage.
We collect rainwater in the garden, and my mum tries to save the rain falling on the roof through the gutter in order to use it for the laundry and cleaning.
Winter came early, and the cold is really harsh. Hot water is one of the most basic requirements of winter in Iraq, but how can we have hot water? We haven't had any electricity supply from our national provider for a month or more!
We totally rely on private generators. Life would have been impossible in my beloved city without them.
My neighbours tried to find a solution to the water shortage, so we dug a well to find enough water for our needs during the continuous shortage of water supply.
Digging water wells became very prevalent in Mosul, and everybody is digging for water in my country that boasts two major rivers.
We now try to save kerosene for heating, although it's very scarce and expensive. The price of a barrel is about $250, although its price on the international markets is no more than $100.
But this is not surprising because we live in Iraq, the land of miracles.
From Mays
School began in Nineveh [Mosul's province], but this year is not like any other year.
IS has issued very strict instructions to the students and the school administrations.
Dulqarnain is a name new to the people of my city. It's the name of the IS person in charge of education in Nineveh. His name, as the highest authority for education, is signed on our books.
He is Egyptian, and his main focus was separating girls from boys in primary schools. According to his instructions, girls go to one building and boys to another. He gave his instructions that girls who look a bit mature for their age should wear loose-fitting garments and a face veil.
Male teachers are not allowed to teach girls and women teachers are not allowed to teach boys. This decision is very difficult to be implemented by public schools and more so for the private ones.
Public schools are funded by the education authority and the ministry of education, and they have a large supply of teachers - male and female - and a lot of buildings.
Private schools, on the other hand, are educational and commercial projects owned by private individuals who do not have the resources to supply the teachers and the buildings.
This means that the demand for private schools will decrease in a time when job opportunities are very scarce and money is hard to come by.
'They cancelled art'
School syllabuses have been changes by IS. There are no physical education classes anymore. Instead there is "jihadi education", which is a subject in which students are taught to love jihad [an Islamic concept meaning "struggle"] and how to do so.
IS cancelled both geography and history lessons, but then they changed their mind. They cancelled art classes, and instead teach Arabic calligraphy. They completely banned the use of colours and coloured pens in schools.
All these matter make the running of schools very difficult, even impossible, especially banning students from activities, such as sports and painting, that mean the world to them.
From Nizar
[Editor's note: Before Islamic State overran Mosul, the city was home to one of the oldest Christian communities in the world. Most fled with the arrival of IS, who ordered the city's remaining Christians to convert to Islam, pay a religious tax, or face being killed.]
Not one house owned by a Christian in Mosul was not taken over and looted by IS members, and all their belongings stolen, down to the last broomstick.
Some IS fighters have even moved into the Christians' homes themselves, using everything in those houses as if they were their own.
They've inhabited all the areas and consider them as spoils of war, as if the Christians and the Yazidis [minority religious group] were the enemy, and by doing so, the IS has become a burden on our areas.
We feel ashamed to call our Christian and Yazidi friends, and I feel I cannot even phone them any more, as if it was me or one of my family or friends that committed those heinous crimes against them.
I decided not to talk or salute any IS member who occupies a Christian house near me, and I cannot bear to look at their evil faces.
Fleeing air strikes
I've taken notice of their behaviour during coalition air strikes. They immediately switch off the lights in the homes they occupy, and some drive off in their stolen cars in some unknown direction.
Then they return as soon as the air strikes cease. A friend of mine had the nerve to ask one of them: "Why do you run away during the air strikes?"
The IS member answered that they fear the strikes will target the houses of Christians that they've occupied because the Christians would have told the coalition their location.
Another friend of mine tried to get close to a house occupied by an IS member and his family to see what was happening there, but he was unable to as they never leave the door open, and don't even talk in the garden.
My friends and I vowed that once this is over, and our city is cleared of the dirt and nastiness, that we would rehabilitate a Christian house to show the world, or at least our Christian friends, that those who did this to them abide by no religion at all.
From Faisal
Four months have passed since Islamic State took over, and a friend of mine is still in hiding here.
He worked as a bodyguard for some judges in Mosul, but after the city fell all the judges left and my friend went into hiding. He moved home so no-one would know where to find him.
My friend doesn't move around in the streets much, because IS fighters are almost everywhere in the city.
Sometimes they set up impromptu checkpoints and go through people's IDs, looking for people wanted by IS: former security personnel or judiciary, or anyone suspected of arresting IS members before IS captured the city, or anyone who worked for the governorate or in politics.
Most of them have left, fearing execution by IS. These kinds of actions have pushed people away from supporting IS. Their criminal acts have terrorised peaceful citizens.
IS members can be seen executing activists in front of everyone in the streets. They wear black fighter outfits, have let their hair and beards grow - some look as if they haven't seen a shower in ages!
Every day they increase in number, hold new positions and consolidate their presence, undeterred by the air strikes from coalition forces which do nothing to change things on the ground. It it is actually our reality which has changed and become even more horrific.
From Mays
I teach at a school in my beloved city, Mosul. Like other Iraqi mothers I work to provide some sort of financial assistance to my husband, albeit negligible, to help fend off the hardships of life through such hard times and in such an expensive country.
This year, when the summer holidays began, I decided to go to Baghdad to visit some family and relatives there and attend a family ceremony.
After the party, when we were all still full of excitement and surrounded by our loved ones, I received news of a curfew back home, and the start of the fighting between government forces and Islamic State rebels.
From that moment I spoke to my husband in Mosul every day to find out the latest news.
'Horror and panic'
I spent the worst days of my life in Baghdad, the city of my childhood innocence, and where I lived my dreams as a woman in my 20s. I had always been thrilled to live in Baghdad until I got married and moved to Mosul.
And yet, for five days of fighting which followed in Mosul, I lived in horror, fear and pure panic, worrying about my husband. I was constantly wondering what was happening and whether I would ever be with him again.
After the arrival of the Sunni rebels and IS fighters in Mosul, my husband and I started plotting my return to the city, but all roads were still blocked because of the fighting taking place between Baghdad and Mosul.
Cities were falling in hours - not even days - after governmental forces fled or retreated, which left everybody puzzled.
After several attempts by my husband and thanks to some of his connections, we managed to book flights from Baghdad to the north.
But then another obstacle faced us - I had not brought my children's documentation as I was travelling by land. Yet as we were now flying, it was a must, or we wouldn't be able to leave.
Armed groups
Thanks to good thinking and God's will we received the documents via a friend who was leaving Mosul by car and who later flew to Baghdad and brought us the papers.
I finally got home to my family in Mosul, shortly after midnight on 20 June. I was shocked and frightened by what I saw in the streets, where armed groups were roaming around. I prayed and fasted for three days.
I stayed at home for a while, until I got used to the situation we are now living under, but those were moments I will never forget.
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