Suicide bombers cleared a path for tanks and infantry. A police station was blown up by a truck loaded with explosives, following which the Islamists fought their way toward the city center. That afternoon black flags were waving from Islamic architectural treasures. But the victory was temporary. Four Iraqi army brigades that had been equipped and placed on a war footing a few weeks before in order to defend Baghdad and the surrounding cities against the Sunni jihadists were readied for action. In the course of the afternoon, Iraqi helicopter attacks forced the Islamists to leave Samarra.
The following day, five suicide bombers attacked a large arms depot in Mosul, the third-largest city in Iraq, allowing the jihadists to seize control of the materials inside. The assault was well coordinated. ISIS had been infiltrating the metropolis for months beforehand. Sleeper cells were activated and joined the offensive. The suicide bombings, as well as the attacks coming from all sides, from within their own ranks too, created the illusion of there being many more jihadists than there were. In fact there were only just over a thousand men, while Mosul, at least on paper, was held by a force fifteen times larger. The Iraqi government had prioritized the defense of the cities nearer Baghdad, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had ignored Kurdish leaders’ warnings of an imminent attack on Mosul.
The international community watched in shock as American-trained Iraqi soldiers discarded their uniforms and fled. The generals were the first to abandon their posts, leaving their officers without orders. Those at the top knew what a poor state the army was in, since they had helped themselves to the funds that should have gone to ammunition and had sent soldiers home with a small remuneration, pocketing their monthly salaries. Corruption pervaded Iraq under al-Maliki, who implemented policies that granted all real power in the country to the Shias, pushing away the Sunni tribes and driving them into the open arms of the Islamists.
By June 9, the Islamists had taken control of the police headquarters, the airport, and numerous public buildings in Mosul. They captured tanks, armored vehicles, pickups, and hundreds of weapons systems, many of them labeled MADE IN USA. Within a few hours, the military booty had been safely driven across the border into Syria. The city’s largest prison was emptied of its inmates. Six hundred Shia Muslims were executed in a nearby ravine; Sunnis were offered the chance to fight alongside ISIS. The next day ISIS had control over all of Mosul.
Within a few days, the Sunni jihadists were approaching Tikrit, which up until the Middle Ages had been an important center of the Syriac Orthodox Church. It was also the birthplace of the Kurdish military commander Saladin, who had captured Jerusalem from the Crusaders. And of Saddam Hussein. Many of his trusted men, both in the army and the party, bore the name al-Tikriti—members of his own tribe. Following the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, Tikrit had formed the northern angle of the so-called Sunni Triangle, where insurgency was at its most intense.
Here too the generals were the first to flee the battlefield. Lack of leadership led to panic among the soldiers at the local air base. Close to three thousand young men tore off their uniforms and fled on foot. They did not make it far before the Islamists caught up with them, calling out, “Are you heading to Baghdad? We can drive you to the capital, hop in!” Those who did not come willingly were forced on board. The trucks stopped at a spot in the middle of the desert.
Eight hundred soldiers were executed over the next few days. ISIS posted video footage of rows of young men, all Shias, lying facedown in the sand. One after another, they were shot in the head. Some were placed on a bridge over the Tigris and shot through the back of the head before falling into the river. Others were forced to lie in freshly dug graves before being peppered with bullets, whereupon more of the young men were ordered to lie on their dead comrades to meet the same fate. Layer upon layer, in the same way that Saddam Hussein had ordered the Kurds shot a generation before in the purge that had been given the name al-Anfal after a chapter in the Koran describing God’s order to Muhammad on fighting unbelievers.
Recordings of the mass killings were soon edited and publicized by ISIS’s propaganda machine.
* * *
The same day as the massacre in Tikrit, Ayan was in Raqqa trying to access her bank account online. She made several attempts without succeeding. She sent her brother a message.
“Important. Where are you?”
“At home. What’s up?”
“I need you to log on to my bank account.”
“????????????????????”
“I can’t log on to my current account or my savings account.”
She read out the passwords to Ismael, who entered them along with her personal password on his computer. When he saw the bank statements, he was shocked.
“You have a MEGA loan,” he wrote. “Good luck with that!”
All her credit card loans were due and were listed as unpaid.
“Not a big deal. The state will take care of that,” his sister answered.
The state was indeed wealthy. Over the last few days, ISIS had conquered large areas of land and millions of new inhabitants. The money from the vault in the central bank in Mosul, several hundred million dollars, was now in the hands of the Islamists, as were oil installations, oil wells, and military materials.
Ismael then asked if his sister could do him a favor.
“Depends,” she answered.
“Can you and Leila make a video explaining why you left?”
“For the family?” Ayan asked.
“For the MEDIA! And soon, I need mon-nay! It would really help me out.”
Ayan told him she would have to discuss it with Leila first.
Ismael persisted. “It would put both of you in a good light, you could show you aren’t idiots being manipulated but that you’re doing this for a reason.”
“That’s true, I don’t like
