| The only one of the four horseman left is famine, and at the rate they're going, he'll show up soon enough. |
[Beirut Daily Star] When ISIS fighters swept into northern Iraq's second city djinn-infested Mosul... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
in a lightning June offensive, their propaganda trumpeted a better life for the people under jihadi rule.
Nearly six months later, residents are suffering from a lack of clean water and also a shortage of medicine to treat illnesses caused by it.
The group's latest name, "Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
," is a clear pointer that the group seeks to rule as well as to conquer, having declared a cross-border "caliphate" spanning parts of Iraq and Syria.
But despite spearheading the June offensive that also overran the surrounding Nineveh province and swaths of other territory, ISIS has been unable to provide basic services in these areas, ultimately undermining the state to which it aspires.
"The impression given in [ISIS'] propaganda is a group offering a better quality of life than before that is also more just for locals," said Aymenn al-Tamimi, a fellow at the Middle East Forum who is an expert on jihadi organizations.
But "the hardships of the locals ... undermine [ISIS'] claims to be a state meeting the needs of the people and offering them real security."
One resident of east Mosul whose wife became ill because of contaminated water said by telephone that the "disruption of the water treatment stations" had led to sickness among many people.
"The biggest and most dangerous problem now is because of our harsh circumstances and the absence of services," Abu Ali said.
Some people have even turned to digging their own wells to get water because of interruptions in the mains supply, which Abu Ali said could be cut for a day or even a week.
Problems with basic services already existed in much of Iraq before this year's crisis erupted, but these have been compounded in Mosul by skilled government employees fleeing jihadi rule.