Basketball courts built by the Americans remain, but expensive military hardware left to the Iraqi army by the US lies burnt and charred: Rageh Omar's special dispatch from Iraq

  • International Affairs editor of ITV News travels to Mosul in special dispatch
  • Saw thousands of refugees streaming out of Iraq's second city
  • Told on good authority ISIS troops have been executing citizens in public
  • UN report suggests extremist fighters have been raping Mosul residents
  • Found military equipment left by US lying charred at Kaywan military base

By Rageh Omar

Published: 19:09 EST, 14 June 2014 | Updated: 19:09 EST, 14 June 2014


It is too dangerous for any western journalist to enter Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, now under the brutal control of ISIS.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Syria  is a group so extreme in its use of violence that even Al Qaeda has distanced itself.

But on Thursday I managed to reach Mosul’s outskirts and saw thousands of refugees streaming out along the highway towards the northern Kurdish city of Irbil. The other carriageway was desolate.

In a special dispatch, Rageh Omar visits the Kaywan Base in Kirkuk - where he found equipment left by the US had been burnt and charred by rebels, some devastation from the area pictured

In a special dispatch, Rageh Omar visits the Kaywan Base in Kirkuk - where he found equipment left by the US had been burnt and charred by rebels, some devastation from the area pictured

Iraqi families arrive at a checkpoint in the town of al-Muafakiya, 80 kms west of Arbil after fleeing their homes

Iraqi families arrive at a checkpoint in the town of al-Muafakiya, 80 kms west of Arbil after fleeing their homes

While the journalist was on dispatch, pictured, ISIS kidnapped a Kurdish TV crew and a Turkish diplomat

While the journalist was on dispatch, pictured, ISIS kidnapped a Kurdish TV crew and a Turkish diplomat

Credible eyewitnesses from inside the city told me of ISIS executions. One elderly couple said that as they left their neighbourhood they passed the corpses of three men who had been shot in the head and left in the street - a public warning.  

One former editor of a local paper who has now gone into hiding, told me that on Tuesday morning, the day ISIS moved into Mosul, he heard female screams and gunfire in a street behind his house. 

He immediately told his wife and twin son and daughter to grab only the most basic essentials, and they left.  

He went to his sister’s house and urged her to leave as well.  A UN report yesterday said there is indeed evidence that  ISIS fighters were carrying out rapes in Mosul.

Volunteers who have joined the Iraqi Army to fight against the predominantly Sunni militants, who have taken over Mosul and other Northern provinces, gesture from an army truck in Baghdad

Volunteers who have joined the Iraqi Army to fight against the predominantly Sunni militants, who have taken over Mosul and other Northern provinces, gesture from an army truck in Baghdad

A picture taken with a mobile phone shows a vehicle ablaze on a road in Hawijah, west of Kirkuk, in northern Iraq

A picture taken with a mobile phone shows a vehicle ablaze on a road in Hawijah, west of Kirkuk, in northern Iraq

An image made available by the jihadist Twitter account Al-Baraka news allegedly shows Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ISIS militants taking position at a Iraqi border post

An image made available by the jihadist Twitter account Al-Baraka news allegedly shows Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ISIS militants taking position at a Iraqi border post

Another image is claimed to show ISIS militants taking position at the border

Another image is claimed to show ISIS militants taking position at the border

Mosul, capital of a major province with a population of nearly 4 million people is now the new capital of what the whole region -  the beginnings of what could soon be an Al Qaeda inspired Islamic mini-state.

It is hard to over-emphasise the significance.  A Jihadi group in control of a major Middle Eastern city and access to US supplied heavy weapons, munitions and armoured vehicles abandoned by the Iraqi army.

ISIS says it wants to rule according to its own version of sharia law, but it also needs to keep the city functioning.

On Thursday it urged public sector workers especially in electricity and water to return to work, promising them that they would be paid.

Many of them have answered ISIS’s call.  What other option do they have?  

An ITV news cameraman filmed an extraordinary scene on Friday as a black-clad ISIS fighter was transformed from a Jihadi insurgent into a traffic policeman. 

Peshmerga fighters provide security at the last checkpoint outside of Mosul which is currently under control of ISIS militants

Peshmerga fighters provide security at the last checkpoint outside of Mosul which is currently under control of ISIS militants

People have their passports processed at a checkpoint next to a temporary displacement camp on Kalak, Iraq, as thousands flee Mosul following the ISIS takeover

People have their passports processed at a checkpoint next to a temporary displacement camp on Kalak, Iraq, as thousands flee Mosul following the ISIS takeover

Families arrive at a Kurdish checkpoint in Kalak having left Mosul in an attempt to get to safety

Families arrive at a Kurdish checkpoint in Kalak having left Mosul in an attempt to get to safety

He re-directed cars as electricity workers manouevered a cherry-picker in order to reach a tangle of cables. A large artillery field-gun looted from an Iraqi army base sat tied to a trailer on the other side of the road, canvas draped over its long barrel.

I visited the vast Kaywan military base, in the city of Kirkuk just two hours drive from Mosul - a network of armouries, living quarters, firing ranges, storage depots. 

The basketball courts and exercise field built by the Americans are still there.  But the expensive military hardware left to the Iraqi army by the US lies burnt and charred, strewn across the place with the personal belongings dropped by rapidly fleeing Iraqi soldiers.

Their underpants and toothpaste, lies alongside the rocket propelled grenades and artillery training manuals they left behind.

Whilst I was there reports came through that ISIS had kidnapped a local Kurdish TV crew in addition to Turkish diplomats. The lessons of its brutal and nihilistic violence are not not lost on anyone.

Rageh Omar is International Affairs Editor of ITV News


 

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These fanatics think they are so cool, so macho. Soldiers of their own gods etc but in reality they're just a bunch of violent blokes who given the chance would jump at a life in the west with benefits, a nice house and flash car. Sorry, fanatics, but that's the truth and you all know it. Given a new life you'd take it and leave all your 'brothers' behind. Enough said

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