Uncertain Future

I have no idea what you're hearing in the west about Iraq at the moment. I don't manage to keep up that well with other news except what I get from reading The Week. But here, the battle for Mosul continues. ISIS still control a handful of neighbourhoods in Western Mosul, in the old part of the city. These are densely populated areas and it's estimated that over 100,000 people are still trapped. Both sides have shored up their defences, and it looks like this could be a grim slog to free the last areas. The battle progressed pretty fast until this point, but now it's almost at a standstill. The army are literally fighting metre by metre. The number of people managing to escape has shrunk to a trickle and the stories they can tell are harrowing. ISIS are using people as human shields in many areas, and I won't repeat here what we hear about other atrocities. Just know that the more desperate ISIS get, the more horrendous their crimes.

As they are battling in Mosul, ISIS are also ramping up attacks elsewhere in Iraq. Our teams in Baghdad are under tighter security restrictions as the number of car bombs has spiked. I have had to put an entire new programming area to the west of Hawiga off limits as ISIS have started to use drones to drop explosives, and over this weekend launched an assault on the area - there were at least 30 suicide bombers detonating themselves on Saturday.

I know I've said it before, but the battle for Mosul really isn't the end here. This country is facing a lot of uncertainty ahead. This kind of ideology doesn't disappear with geographical boundaries. It just goes underground and hides. It leaves it's legacy behind in traumatised people who live in fear. It leaves widows and children who are shunned by their communities, because of what their husbands and fathers have done. It contributes to a society where weapons are normal, and solving problems through violence is standard. And then, as it goes underground, we are left with the same issues from before, the same sectarian divides, the same power plays, the same economic mismanagement. We have to find other ways to fight this at it's roots. If you pray, please continue to pray for the Middle East, particularly Iraq and Syria.