Everyday life under ISIS in Fallujah: danger, rage and profit
Ahmed RasheedMichael Georgy| Reuters
BAGHDAD: After ISIS seized Fallujah
in January it persuaded a man making covers for cars to sell suicide
vests instead, one of many changes in the Iraqi city as it adapts to
life under the ultra hard-line militants.
ISIS is notorious for beheading or executing anyone who stands in its way when seizing cities and towns in Iraq and Syria that form its self-proclaimed caliphate, often using suicide bombers to make advances.
ISIS is notorious for beheading or executing anyone who stands in its way when seizing cities and towns in Iraq and Syria that form its self-proclaimed caliphate, often using suicide bombers to make advances.
The militants have issued
guidelines on life with their ideology, requiring all women to wear face
veils, and banning the cigarettes and Western-style haircuts that were
popular in Fallujah before.
Many residents feel alienated by the changes. But in order to keep the “empire” and its holy war against governments and armies going, ISIS also strikes deals with people like the tailor, according to recent visitors to Fallujah who spoke to Reuters in Baghdad by telephone.
ISIS provided a generator and free fuel, enabling him to boost profits and churn out suicide vests, belts and trousers from a building pockmarked by U.S. bullets used against Al-Qaeda nearly a decade ago.
“I passed through hard times. I have children to feed. I chose this new profession willingly and I take responsibility for the outcome,” the tailor said.
Like other people quoted in this story, his name has not been included for security reasons.
Fallujah was the first Iraqi city to fall to ISIS, an Al-Qaeda offshoot comprised of Arabs and foreign fighters who have threatened to march on nearby Baghdad.
During the U.S. occupation of Iraq after Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003, it emerged as the main bastion of the Sunni insurgency in western Anbar province and swiftly became an Al-Qaeda stronghold. The U.S. Marines fought over it with Al-Qaeda in 2004 in two of the biggest battles of the American war.
A decade later, ISIS is deeply entrenched in Fallujah, making it one of the main examples of what life could soon be like across swaths of Syria and Iraq under its ultra-hard-line ideology.
The mainly tribal town in the Euphrates valley just west of Baghdad has long been a bastion of traditional religious and cultural practice. Even Saddam’s secular dictatorship was alarmed by Islamists there. But Fallujah’s deeply conservative population has often been uneasy with life under ISIS.
All women who appear at the entrances of Fallujah are given a free head-to-toe niqab, or veil, that they are forced to put on in a booth with tinted glass so that men can’t see them.
ISIS has guidelines on what is forbidden in pamphlets pasted on buildings and mosques across Fallujah: no cigarettes or shisha water pipes as they might distract people from worship, no Western-style haircuts, no T-shirts with English writing or images of women. Women are not allowed to leave home unaccompanied by a male relative, a rule that has deepened frustrations.
One witness recalled how a crowd gathered as a woman in her 50s who used to sell women’s underwear, clothes and nail polish shouted outside the Fallujah ISIS court, which rules on everything from crimes to disputes between neighbors.
The woman was heading to the court to argue she should be allowed to walk alone because she is a widow and did not want to burden her brothers. She yelled at ISIS militants just outside the courthouse.
“You say God does not accept a woman going outside her house alone. Then how could God accept you killing people?” a witness quoted the woman as saying.
A militant responded. “We would decapitate you if you were a man.”
The court ruled that she should be expelled from Fallujah. She left with her belongings in a pickup truck and ISIS militants took over her home.
Young girls under 12, the cutoff age for enforcing the niqab, must wear a headscarf.
“Why do they force us to do something against our will? We were born free and it’s unfair to be treated like this,” said one woman whose 6-year-old daughter was forced to wear a headscarf. Even shop front mannequins must wear the niqab.
In the once smoke-filled cafes where residents would puff on water pipes, discuss the day’s events and watch television, ISIS now permits only sipping tea and viewing religious programs, a cafe owner said.
One man inside a crowded city market said he had been caught smoking a shisha.
“Gunmen from the Islamic State arrested me and took me to a preacher who warned me not to repeat this wrong act, otherwise I will be whipped,” he said, using the group’s latest name. “At this point I am resigned to the fact that we should carry arms and fight Islamic State in Fallujah or we will end up as their slaves.”
Young people who once escaped from Iraq’s tragedies by working out at Fallujah’s Golan Sports Hall have watched ISIS militants turn it into an auction house which offers furniture, refrigerators and carpets taken from government employees.
But while ISIS has alienated some people with its methods, the group has also tried to win others over by providing basic services.
Militants driving trucks with ISIS banners water trees by the roadside. The group employs cleaners to remove garbage from streets with pavements painted to match the group’s black and white flags.
In Fallujah, even the subsidized flour at state shops comes in sacks bearing the logo of ISIS.
Aside from their efforts to run Fallujah like a state, the militants see it as a strategic asset in their drive to redraw the map of the Middle East.
U.S. airstrikes, which have failed to slow the advance of ISIS in Anbar, have targeted the area around Fallujah. ISIS militants have changed their movements to avoid detection, as special security teams in black ski masks search for infiltrators.
One witness said anyone caught filming is immediately surrounded, arrested and interrogated by ISIS militants, mostly long-haired men who wear gray Taliban-style outfits, who are senior to men in beige. Fighters on the front line wear black.
Witnesses said the militants now travel in ordinary vehicles and motorcycles instead of pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns.
Tanks and armored vehicles seized from defeated Iraqi troops are covered by tree branches and hidden in strategic areas, the witnesses said.
Despite the pressure of U.S. airstrikes launched after ISIS made fresh advances in recent months and began beheading Western hostages, the Sunni militants seem firmly in control of Fallujah.
That means the tailor’s dwindling business should keep flourishing. He has bought a second sewing machine.
The suicide outfits are made of tough waterproof material and come in black and beige. There are several kinds: one has chest pockets for explosives while another has pockets along the chest and upper back. The third has pockets hidden in trousers.
All three are piled high on the pavement for lack of space. The militants load the material on to a truck and set off to prepare for the next mission.
“I know that one day I may get arrested by [Iraqi] security forces. But they should know that I am doing this for the sake of my family,” said the tailor.
Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2014/Nov-04/276448-everyday-life-under-isis-in-fallujah-danger-rage-and-profit.ashx#ixzz3I6pxHexo
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Many residents feel alienated by the changes. But in order to keep the “empire” and its holy war against governments and armies going, ISIS also strikes deals with people like the tailor, according to recent visitors to Fallujah who spoke to Reuters in Baghdad by telephone.
ISIS provided a generator and free fuel, enabling him to boost profits and churn out suicide vests, belts and trousers from a building pockmarked by U.S. bullets used against Al-Qaeda nearly a decade ago.
“I passed through hard times. I have children to feed. I chose this new profession willingly and I take responsibility for the outcome,” the tailor said.
Like other people quoted in this story, his name has not been included for security reasons.
Fallujah was the first Iraqi city to fall to ISIS, an Al-Qaeda offshoot comprised of Arabs and foreign fighters who have threatened to march on nearby Baghdad.
During the U.S. occupation of Iraq after Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003, it emerged as the main bastion of the Sunni insurgency in western Anbar province and swiftly became an Al-Qaeda stronghold. The U.S. Marines fought over it with Al-Qaeda in 2004 in two of the biggest battles of the American war.
A decade later, ISIS is deeply entrenched in Fallujah, making it one of the main examples of what life could soon be like across swaths of Syria and Iraq under its ultra-hard-line ideology.
The mainly tribal town in the Euphrates valley just west of Baghdad has long been a bastion of traditional religious and cultural practice. Even Saddam’s secular dictatorship was alarmed by Islamists there. But Fallujah’s deeply conservative population has often been uneasy with life under ISIS.
All women who appear at the entrances of Fallujah are given a free head-to-toe niqab, or veil, that they are forced to put on in a booth with tinted glass so that men can’t see them.
ISIS has guidelines on what is forbidden in pamphlets pasted on buildings and mosques across Fallujah: no cigarettes or shisha water pipes as they might distract people from worship, no Western-style haircuts, no T-shirts with English writing or images of women. Women are not allowed to leave home unaccompanied by a male relative, a rule that has deepened frustrations.
One witness recalled how a crowd gathered as a woman in her 50s who used to sell women’s underwear, clothes and nail polish shouted outside the Fallujah ISIS court, which rules on everything from crimes to disputes between neighbors.
The woman was heading to the court to argue she should be allowed to walk alone because she is a widow and did not want to burden her brothers. She yelled at ISIS militants just outside the courthouse.
“You say God does not accept a woman going outside her house alone. Then how could God accept you killing people?” a witness quoted the woman as saying.
A militant responded. “We would decapitate you if you were a man.”
The court ruled that she should be expelled from Fallujah. She left with her belongings in a pickup truck and ISIS militants took over her home.
Young girls under 12, the cutoff age for enforcing the niqab, must wear a headscarf.
“Why do they force us to do something against our will? We were born free and it’s unfair to be treated like this,” said one woman whose 6-year-old daughter was forced to wear a headscarf. Even shop front mannequins must wear the niqab.
In the once smoke-filled cafes where residents would puff on water pipes, discuss the day’s events and watch television, ISIS now permits only sipping tea and viewing religious programs, a cafe owner said.
One man inside a crowded city market said he had been caught smoking a shisha.
“Gunmen from the Islamic State arrested me and took me to a preacher who warned me not to repeat this wrong act, otherwise I will be whipped,” he said, using the group’s latest name. “At this point I am resigned to the fact that we should carry arms and fight Islamic State in Fallujah or we will end up as their slaves.”
Young people who once escaped from Iraq’s tragedies by working out at Fallujah’s Golan Sports Hall have watched ISIS militants turn it into an auction house which offers furniture, refrigerators and carpets taken from government employees.
But while ISIS has alienated some people with its methods, the group has also tried to win others over by providing basic services.
Militants driving trucks with ISIS banners water trees by the roadside. The group employs cleaners to remove garbage from streets with pavements painted to match the group’s black and white flags.
In Fallujah, even the subsidized flour at state shops comes in sacks bearing the logo of ISIS.
Aside from their efforts to run Fallujah like a state, the militants see it as a strategic asset in their drive to redraw the map of the Middle East.
U.S. airstrikes, which have failed to slow the advance of ISIS in Anbar, have targeted the area around Fallujah. ISIS militants have changed their movements to avoid detection, as special security teams in black ski masks search for infiltrators.
One witness said anyone caught filming is immediately surrounded, arrested and interrogated by ISIS militants, mostly long-haired men who wear gray Taliban-style outfits, who are senior to men in beige. Fighters on the front line wear black.
Witnesses said the militants now travel in ordinary vehicles and motorcycles instead of pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns.
Tanks and armored vehicles seized from defeated Iraqi troops are covered by tree branches and hidden in strategic areas, the witnesses said.
Despite the pressure of U.S. airstrikes launched after ISIS made fresh advances in recent months and began beheading Western hostages, the Sunni militants seem firmly in control of Fallujah.
That means the tailor’s dwindling business should keep flourishing. He has bought a second sewing machine.
The suicide outfits are made of tough waterproof material and come in black and beige. There are several kinds: one has chest pockets for explosives while another has pockets along the chest and upper back. The third has pockets hidden in trousers.
All three are piled high on the pavement for lack of space. The militants load the material on to a truck and set off to prepare for the next mission.
“I know that one day I may get arrested by [Iraqi] security forces. But they should know that I am doing this for the sake of my family,” said the tailor.
A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on November 04, 2014, on page 8.
Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2014/Nov-04/276448-everyday-life-under-isis-in-fallujah-danger-rage-and-profit.ashx#ixzz3I6pxHexo
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