By Timour Azhari and Khalid Al-Mousily
MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – It was the simple evening act of watering flowers on his street in Mosul’s Old City that made Saqr Zakaria stop and think about how safe this last bastion of Islamic State militants has become since he was liberated in 2017.
“I thought for a second, ‘where am I?'” said Zakaria, who left the city in 2005 but returned to create a cultural center, the Baytna Foundation, in 2018, at a time when thousands of bodies were still being removed. . the ruins.
The jihadist group declared its caliphate at the al-Nuri Grand Mosque shortly after taking Mosul a decade ago, imposing an extreme form of Islam that has led them to kill members of minority groups, ban music and destroy archaeological sites.
The maze of alleys in this part of the city, on the west bank of the Tigris River, has become a regular site of murders, kidnappings and crimes with the rise of Islamic insurgents following the 2003 US-led invasion.
Much of it was pulverized and thousands of civilians were killed in the battle to free it.
But despite political infighting, allegations of corruption and delayed reconstruction, life is returning on both sides of the river.
Many of the more than two dozen people who spoke to a Reuters reporter during a four-night visit to the city said they felt safer today than at any time in the past two decades.
“Life consisted of eating, sleeping and locking the door to avoid being kidnapped, killed or blown up. We were private and today we are inventing it,” said Zakaria. Its foundation, housed in a traditional Moslawi house with an inner courtyard, has become an important attraction for local and foreign visitors, including French President Emmanuel Macron in 2021.
Shortly after he spoke, an elderly man entered the courtyard and cried when he saw photos, hanging on the wall, of the city’s intellectual and cultural elite remembering better days.
“This is Mosul,” said Nizar Al-Khayat, a 70-year-old former school principal, his voice wavering. “No matter what happens, it remains a cultured and civilized city.”
Local officials and residents say there is a long way to go before Mosul abandons the legacy of ISIS.
The rubble is still being removed seven years after the city’s liberation. Buildings marked with collapsed floors and exposed rebar can still be seen around Mosul. The Old City is in ruins.
But the bridges were built. New restaurants have opened where diners savor Lebanese cuisine and bob their heads to the nostalgic sounds of Syrian tenors.
A riverside souk and cafes buzz with life until the early hours of the night, something previously unthinkable in a city where people locked themselves at home in the late afternoon.
At the same time as the city works to restore basic infrastructure, it is focused on expanding green areas and tourist attractions, such as a new riverside corniche, said Firas al-Sultan, technical advisor to the Mosul municipality.
Monuments to the city’s rich interfaith history, such as the Nuri Grand Mosque and Al-Tahera Church visited by Pope Francis in 2021, are being rebuilt.
(Reporting by Timour Azhari and Khalid Al-Mousily in Mosul, editing by William Maclean)
