An armored vehicle belonging to Iraqi security forces engulfed in flames in Mosul, Iraq on Tuesday.
After a long night of shelling between government forces and armed groups in the province of Ninevah in northern Iraq, Ahmed al-Muslawi and his family decided to flee Mosul for Iraqi Kurdistan. When he awoke the next morning, he learned that the city had fallen into the hands of radical organizations, and that the shelling had stopped.
Speaking to Al-Monitor by phone, Muslawi said he didn't expect the city to fall that way. Mosul residents, according to him, expected the course of events in their city to resemble what happened in Anbar province in western Iraq, where government military operations have continued for more than six months.
Muslawi, a clothing store owner, said, "When the militants took control of the city, they knocked on the doors of houses and told residents that they would not be targeted at all ... and that their dispute was with the central government and its army."
According to Muslawi, the militants forced the owners of bakeries and gas stations to return to their jobs.
Comment: Indeed, what was the point? Oil? Israel? The U.S. made this mess, and it should be the one to clean it up. Unfortunately, it's unlikely the U.S. has the intelligence, means, or motivation to do anything about it. When their list of options can be counted on two fingers (military intervention, or do nothing), that should be a sign that the U.S. government is a complete and utter failure. Future historians will be right to look back at the present time and shake their heads at the West's catastrophic arrogance, stupidity, and blind cruelty.