Trapped in Mosul

"Instead [of the lavish planning pre-ISIS] we had a tiny wedding party with only three cars with modest decoration and almost no songs or music and only few relatives attended. What bitterness."
"I'm fed up. I want to live a normal life with my husband where I can go out with him at any time without worrying about our safety, the marriage documents and even without being annoyed by the niqab when eating at a restaurant."
Newly-wed 22-year-old woman, Mosul

"Do they really want me to give up the house my father spent years building to an Afghani or Chechen [ISIS fighter] or to an Iraqi villager so that I can leave for good? They are dreaming."
Newly-wed 29-year-old groom, Mosul

"I can't leave here with my family because I have no other source for living."
"Every day when I come back home, I lock the house door on my family."
Mosul resident, father of four

Fleeing Iraqi citizens from Mosul and other northern towns walk toward a Kurdish security forces checkpoint in northern Iraq. The Islamic State group has tightened restrictions to prevent residents from leaving the city. Hussein Malla/The Associated Press Files

They, at least, as Sunni Iraqis, not Shias, not Yazidis, not Christians, all of whom have suffered beyond imagination at the hands of ISIS, in killing sprees, in mass rapes, in enslavement, in joining the hordes of homeless refugees fleeing for refuge to Kurdistan, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey. The crisis in the Middle East is ever-widening. The millions of refugees created when Syria decided barrel-bombing was as good a solution as the West-denied chemical attacks have flooded neighbouring countries as it is.

Iraqi Sunnis living in Mosul who may at first have welcomed the Islamic State jihadists in establishing their caliphate now view them as oppressors horribly inconveniencing civil life in their city, the second-largest in Iraq. In several months' time, even those Sunni Iraqis who chafe at the presence of ISIS transforming their civil lifestyle from relaxed Islam to fanatical Islam may view things in a different light should the assembled Iraqi military augmented by Shia groups and Iran's al-Quds division rout the Islamic State from Mosul.

At that time the vengeance extracted by the Shia-majority Iraqi military whose courage has been immeasurably shored by the 20,000 irregular Shia militants under the direction of an Iranian general, may be sufficient to make resentful Mosul-dwelling Sunnis downright nostalgic for the presence of their fanatical Sunni overlords. For the present, however, it is enough that they may no longer travel unreservedly, but are held to remain where they are.

But what is happening 200 kilometres southeast of Mosul is indeed of huge interest to Mosul residents as the Iraqi army and Shi'ite militiamen gradually pry the Islamic State from Saddam Hussein's Tikrit hometown. Should that campaign succeed, and with much additional blood spilled on both sides, it certainly may, the campaign to retake Iraq from its settled caliphate will have far broader consequences.

In this file photo taken Wednesday, June 25, 2014, fleeing Iraqi citizens from Mosul and other northern towns wait in a long traffic queue at a Kurdish security forces checkpoint at a highway between the Iraqi city of Mosul and the Kurdish city of Irbil in the Khazer area of northern Iraq.  (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)

While Iraqi Sunnis not in support of ISIL are resigned to their life under the caliphate rule, they endure with resentment. The women decidedly not pleased with being forced to cover from head to toe. With having to prove at various militant checkpoints, when out in public with their husbands that they are indeed married. Going out for an evening stroll, for an evening out at a local restaurant, means carrying official documentation of proof of marriage.

The couple that had dreamed of a traditional lavish wedding with a motorcade to the social hall packed with friends and relatives, had done all their planning of the celebratory marriage event before ISIS occupied Mosul, and then their new reality sunk in. They anticipated living a 'normal life'. And now that they cannot in their home city, they search for means to escape, hopeful they can evade the 'departure taxes' that will free them of all their belongings.

Of the young couple, the anguish is that they are the only members of their family left in Mosul now, and to them was entrusted the security of the family home. But the Islamic State administrators of Mosul have other ideas; mostly how best to ensure that no more Mosul residents flee their rule, leaving them with a city sans occupants; no way to populate a caliphate. Restrictive measures were undertaken to persuade people it would be in their best interests to remain and enjoy life under ISIS.

Those wishing to leave the city, even briefly, must now submit the title for their family home or vehicle, if it is valued at over $20,000, should they wish permission granted to leave for a two-week period. Failure to return within that specific time-frame signals property confiscation. At first former police and army officers were banned from leaving in fear they could join the fight against ISIS rule. Restrictions were then tightened further to permit patients with urgent medical requirements to leave.

In late February, the requirement was passed for prospective travellers to acknowledge they must understand that should they leave Mosul their homes would be confiscated, their vehicles taken possession of. Ways can be found to be smuggled out of the city, but the cost that is levied for that dangerous undertaking is beyond the means of many residents, at $20,000.

Life in the Middle East can be extremely fraught and complex.