Summary

“Revenge” is a word that seems to define Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city. It was here that “Islamic State” leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the Caliphate in June 2014. The liberation of the city came only two years later and lasted nine months. And with the liberation came the revenge, filling the streets with corpses of suspected ISIS members, often accused on dubious evidence. Shortsighted American policy, implemented after the 2003 invasion, ignored Iraq’s sectarian complexities and resulted in the exclusion of the Sunni minority as - here it is again - revenge for their allegiance to Saddam Hussein. So when ISIS first appeared, branding themselves as “protectors of the Sunnis”, many in the Sunni-majority Mosul welcomed their promises of stability and security and joined them. And many didn’t.