Mosul Eye – I lost all hope in any thing, I lost the feeling of…

I reviewed what I reported as news and documentation of the events in the city over the past year, not because I am an obliged Mosuli citizen who feels entrusted with his city, but more because I’m a truth seeker, pursuing it with every bit of passion for life I got in me, I realized that continuing in doing what I’m doing is utter waste, because I wasn’t fighting ISIL only, but I was fighting against an entire society with its heritage, a heritage that goes hundreds of years back.

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Mosul Eye – I lost all hope in any thing, I lost the feeling of….

The Prophet. (Pablo Gargallo)

From Diyarbikkir to Lalish: Walking in the Footsteps of Genocide

“That evening, I found myself exhausted both physically and mentally. But there was one place I still had to visit, an old pedestrian bridge that I describe in my novel.  I thought I would spend some quiet time there, but a wedding was being celebrated on the bridge’s top. The ten- arched bridge, “On Guzlu Copry,” was built by the bishop of Diyarbakkir, Yohanna Z’oro, late in the 4th century, so his parish could cross to the other bank of the Tigris and access the Church of 40 Martyrs. I found to my surprise — and dismay — that a plaque placed on the side of the bridge when it was renovated in 2010 claimed it as the first “Islamic” bridge in Anatolia!”

…learn, learn, learn…

ARABLIT & ARABLIT QUARTERLY

Iraqi novelist Layla Qasrany traveled to Turkey to commemorate the Armenian genocide and visit sites that had appeared in her most recent novel. A side-trip into northern Iraq, where she visited a Yazidi shrine, brought depressing and hopeful news of ISIS:

By Layla Qasrany

Diyarbakir, Turkey

Diarbakýr, Turkey

We say in Arabic that there are five benefits to travel. No one seems to know just what these are, but I derived many benefits from a trip I took recently. The journey began with my arrival in southern Turkey to attend the commemoration of the centennial of the Armenian genocide, in which we paid tribute to the million-plus souls deported from Diyarbakkir who consequently died in the desert of Syria.  One benefit was that I got to walk in the path of the caravan I depicted in my latest Arabic novel.

The first thing I did on the 23rd of April was…

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The whole world says it: Turkey… J’accuse!

Is Turkey collaborating with the Islamic State (ISIS)? Allegations range from military cooperation and weapons transfers to logistical support, financial assistance, and the provision of medical services. It is also alleged that Turkey turned a blind eye to ISIS attacks against Kobani.President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu strongly deny complicity with ISIS. Erdogan visited the Council on Foreign Relations on September 22, 2014. He criticized “smear campaigns [and] attempts to distort perception about us.” Erdogan decried, “A systematic attack on Turkey’s international reputation, “complaining that “Turkey has been subject to very unjust and ill-intentioned news items from media organizations.” Erdogan posited: “My request from our friends in the United States is to make your assessment about Turkey by basing your information on objective sources.”Columbia University’s Program on Peace-building and Rights assigned a team of researchers in the United States, Europe, and Turkey to examine Turkish and international media, assessing the credibility of allegations. This report draws on a variety of international sources — The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Daily Mail, BBC, Sky News, as well as Turkish sources, CNN Turk, Hurriyet Daily News, Taraf, Cumhuriyet, and Radikal among others.

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Research Paper: ISIS-Turkey List | David L. Phillips.

Turkey, ….and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, ….even US and Israel have allowed this evil to grow, in certain moments.

And the worst is Arabs and Muslims themselves doing nothing …because “it’s a CIA/Israeli creation” (¡¡¿¿??!!)

… damn myopic generation of spiritually retarded degenerates.

Yazidi means “I was created”

Who are the Ezidis?

Many Kurds know the Ezidis as refugees, IDPs, even as devil worshippers – though mostly through biased media reports. Kawa wants to learn the truth about the people’s religion and daily life. In this ZLR episode Kawa goes to a Ezidi community in Lalesh, the main Yazidi temple complex in the KR. He meets a young man called Zaid, who shows Kawa various aspects of Ezidi life; from how they eat, to prayer in their temple, to who is protecting them from IS. Zaid and his family were on Mount Sinjar and along with others subjected to much horror and deprivation.

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Who are the Ezidis? – Middle East Alliance.

Never stop learning, people… never. 

Kurdistan… why…. or why not?… and how… and how not?

In respect to regaining the Kurdish Homeland, ISIS / DA’ESH was a gift from heaven as the Kurds are now controlling everything what is rightfully theirs and what the Arabs would never ever have given them. The main reason why the disputed territory question was never resolved is:

The Arabs, the Assyrians and the Turkomans are utterly terrified by the idea to belong to Kurdistan. They fear the Kurds would discriminate against them (which is not so off if you consider that the KDP-part of Iraqi Kurdistan failed to properly protect the Christians, Yezidis and other religious minorities when the Islamic State attacked Kurdistan).

Now that most of the disputed territories are in Kurdish hands, the Kurds are in a much better negotiating position. In the meantime the Iraqi Kurds need to show that the actually mean when they say they are the natural protector of ethno- & religious minorities.

In this respect the Iraqi Kurds can learn from Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) how to govern the newly conquered Disputed Territories, as PYD leaders have worked to create a system of inclusion that works to preserve the diversity of Syrian Kurdistan and maintain a spirit of tolerance in Rojava and Syria. This is why the PYD has reached out to the Arab, Armenian, Assyrian, and Turkoman communities of Syrian Kurdistan to also represent their interests and to be their movement too.

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Why should Kurdistan become an independent country?

Quora

This is a deffinitely interesting answer… worth reading, in my opinion.

This said, with all the limitations and reserves that prudence advices…  I wish some day they have their place to live in safety and prosperity, same as every other people.

Biji Kurdistan!

Mosul Eye: Straight from inside hell.

Destroying Mosul’s Heritage:

We apologize for not updating the page. Like most Iraqis, we have been mourning the unbearable loss of our precious relics. Once again, many unrealistic voices have been asking why the inhabitants of Mosul did nothing to stop the rampage, and once again we will say if stopping the destruction and oppression without arms were possible, 5 million Jews would not have been killed systematically during the Holocaust. There was an average of 10,000 Jews in every concentration camp vs. 50 Nazis. If freeing themselves and fighting back, with their bare hands like many are asking the people of Mosul, were an option, they would have. As for the pythons calling for a nuclear or chemical attack on Mosul, we will ask them to look in the mirror and seek the reason for all the hatred they carry inside. It is beyond shameful that Mosul receives prayers and wishful thoughts from non-Iraqis world-wide whereas Iraqis are calling for genocide of the hostage people of Mosul.

Some notes about the destruction:

1- The footage seen in the video published by ISIS dates back to July-August 2014 and NOT February 2015. We had noted in a previous news brief last August that ISIS had destroyed the Winged Bull at the entrance of “Nirgal Gate” as well as the statues in Mosul’s Museum. We must ask ourselves why ISIS chose this specific date to post the video.

2- 90% of the statues in the museum are indeed not authentic, but rather gypsum versions of the originals which have been moved to Baghdad gradually since April 2003. However, the Winged Bull is authentic. Another important note worth mentioning is the “Yellow Obelisk” of Assyrian King Esarhaddon, and many and many authentic tablets are missing from the video footage. Our inquiries with the Museum’s employees conclude that these pieces were taken out of the Museum since early July following the detaining of the Museum’s manager (Musa’ab Mohammed Jasim) whom we have mentioned in a previous post. The manager was detained after ISIS took over the city in order to identify the exact value of the ancient artefacts. He was released later. Museum administrive Dr. Muntaha also claims the museum is no longer of any value apart from the yellow obelisk and ISIS. The obelisk vanished from the Museum on February 25th one day after German experts in Mosul evaluated its worth. How the German experts entered the city and managed to secure ISIS protection remains a mystery. However, we must wonder if the pro-ISIS propaganda made by German reporter Jurgen Todenhofer last December was part of the bargain. This should be material for a worldwide investigation as to how these Germans accessed the city under ISIS protection. Where are the journalists?

3- Sources tell us ISIS is excavating the areas around monumental sites in Mosul in search of relics, particularly around the location of Jonah’s tomb (previously). Witnesses say ISIS militiamen would spend hours in the site after sunset.

4- ISIS have destroyed 10% of the artefacts they possess. The remaining relics in Nimrod and Hatra are priceless.

5- Further investigations have led to facts that several ancient pieces from Syria and Iraq have been shipped to Turkey through shipping cars that do not belong to ISIS, but to international shipping companies. We have enough evidence to believe that business and trade is continuing between ISIS and Kurdistan & Baghdad.

6- Ancient Syriac, Arabic, and Latin manuscripts preserved in Mosul’s churches have been confiscated by ISIS months ago. These rare scripts constitute a treasure of Christian heritage. Plans are being made to sell them to antique dealers.

7- Two men who appeared in the video of ISIS destroying the relics have been identified. They shall be punished.

8- Final Note: Mosul Eye only posts updates that are well-worth noting. Even if you decide not to believe our news, please take it into serious consideration. We do not collect news for the sake of entertainment or merely reading. Several satellite channels do that. What we offer is by far more than that. We are conveying updates to those whom in concerns and are risking our lives every minute while doing so.

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Mosul Eye

A young women’s call “To Our Countries”

A new occasion to let us all remember that change in Middle East will come invariably from women. Let them be these women singing in exile from Sweden or the brave fighting women of Kobane.

Let this be a call for ALL OF OUR COUNTRIES… even those not in Middle East. 

Because this is not a tragedy for Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Israelis, Palestinians… and all MIddle Eastern People. 

The oldest remnants of human civilization are found in these lands.

so this is a tragedy in the bethren of HUMAN CULTURE.

A tragedy for all humans.

If Middle East keeps being lost… we will all loose… because it’s not “us and them”.

It’s US ALL.

And as far as we don’t change the way things are happening, this shit will never let the world advance.

So let’s help this voice to spread.

Let’s help  this women voice sound louder than the shots of a doshka in Kobane.

Louder than any invocation to Devil before killing someone in the name of a false concept of God.

Because God does not need our blood, ANY BLOOD, to stain the ground to make His point.

Please share. 

To Our Countries لبلادي

How is it to resist while living the hell of Raqqa.

From the very start of the popular uprising in Syria, Assad and his regime described the unarmed protesters as “terrorists.” In order to ensure that reality fell in line with its propaganda, the regime began arresting tens of thousands of activists calling for democracy and who resisted sectarianism. At the same time, it released from prison Jihadists, who in turn began establishing armed groups that adhered to Salafi and Jihadist ideologies, which eventually became IS.The rise of radical groups in Syria benefited the regime not only by making its propaganda a self-fulfilling prophecy, but also by increasing support for it among religious minorities, the bourgeois and liberals. It should be no surprise, therefore, that the Assad regime consistently refrained from directly fighting IS. The jihadist organization, for its part, preferred to focus on the establishment of an Islamic state and fighting against more moderate rebels and enforcing Sharia on the population under its rule.“From the time when IS took full control over Raqqa in March [2014], there was only one aerial bombing – 40 days after they arrived,” Akram recalls. “Then there was complete calm.”In June 2014, with the help of local Sunni tribes and organizations related to the Iraqi Ba’ath party, IS forces took control of large parts of Iraq, including the Sunni cities of Mosul and Tikrit. The IS advance has since been halted as a result of a counter attacks by Shi’ite militias, the Kurdish Peshmerga, the Iraqi Army and the American Air Force.“Everything changed dramatically [in Raqqa] after IS’s huge advances in Iraq and its capture of Mosul,” Akram explains. “Since then we have witnessed at least 10 air raids a week.”

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Trapped between Assad and ‘IS’: Inside the capital of the ‘Islamic State’

 +972 Magazine.

As some guy stated out there commenting this link on Facebook: 

“Over the past few decades, Saudi Arabia has founded and funded Wahhabi mosques in many cities in many, if not most, countries. Those Wahhabi mosques preach division and discord between Muslims, and condemn all other interpretations and traditions of Islam as heretical, often even calling for non-Wahhabi Muslims, as well as non-Muslims, to be killed.

Those Wahhabi mosques and preachers are the sources of many, if not most, of the foreign fighters who’ve joined ISIS, and their same sources of funding are behind ISIS, itself.

Authentic Islamic sources and teachings make it clear that Wahhabi/takfiri/khawarij doctrine is not only un-Islamic, but anti-Islam.

The only reason it has been able to flourish is because the British helped the Wahhabi-backed Al-Saud family seize Arabia after WW1, as a way of controlling the oil that was found there, and the Americans compounded that error in the post-WW2 era, in the name of “stability”.

As well as acting against ISIS, the Saudis’ global network of Wahhabi mosques and preachers should be either dismantled, or subjected to rigorous scrutiny and controls, to end their incitement against both non-Wahhabi Muslims and non-Muslims”

And I agree… if we want to stop Muslim extremism (and not only IS, but all kinds) we have to stop those who teach it and recover the memory of people like Ibn Rushd, Rumi, Ibn Arabi and other wise men from the Sufi tradition that represented the splendor of Islam, and erase the heritage of Ibn Wahab, who represents its shameful moral decline.

IS origins: When you see your neighbour’s beard being shaved… better start getting yours ready.

Abd al-Wahhab demanded conformity — a conformity that was to be demonstrated in physical and tangible ways. He argued that all Muslims must individually pledge their allegiance to a single Muslim leader a Caliph, if there were one. Those who would not conform to this view should be killed, their wives and daughters violated, and their possessions confiscated, he wrote. The list of apostates meriting death included the Shiite, Sufis and other Muslim denominations, whom Abd al-Wahhab did not consider to be Muslim at all. There is nothing here that separates Wahhabism from ISIS. The rift would emerge only later: from the subsequent institutionalization of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s doctrine of “One Ruler, One Authority, One Mosque” — these three pillars being taken respectively to refer to the Saudi king, the absolute authority of official Wahhabism, and its control of “the word” i.e. the mosque. It is this rift — the ISIS denial of these three pillars on which the whole of Sunni authority presently rests — makes ISIS, which in all other respects conforms to Wahhabism, a deep threat to Saudi Arabia.

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You Can’t Understand ISIS If You Don’t Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia

Alastair Crooke.

(Cartoon: Bertram, Joep. http://www.cagle.com/2014/06/mind-of-his-own/)

“We will leave Mosul and we will never return as long as these people are present,” he was overheard saying to his wife as they hurried away…

Recently IS group leader, al-Baghdadi, who has hardly been seen at all and who has been notoriously media-shy, was filmed by his group’s propaganda team preaching at Mosul’s landmark Great Mosque of Al Nouri. Afterwards groups of men approached al-Baghdadi. One local who asked what was going on was told that the men were pledging allegiance too. “Up until now it seems that this pledge is voluntary,” the local man, who preferred not to give his name for security reasons, said. “The ball is currently in the local people’s court. But that can’t last forever,” he speculated. “Soon anyone who has not pledged loyalty will be considered an enemy,” he suggested. Al-Baghdadi’s public appearance made many of the IS group members proud and they began to tell locals openly that Mosul would be the capital of the new Islamic state they had formed. All other conquests would be launched from Mosul, they said. Whatever does happen, the IS group is certainly acting as though Mosul is their capital, especially now that their “Caliph” – al-Baghdadi – was present and that people had pledged allegiance to him.

via Niqash

– security –

all islamic, all the time – mosul set to become caliphate’s capital.