Islamic State is killing civilians, but these Mosul residents still won’t flee

Reporting from Mosul, Iraq —  Yasser Mahmoud carried a white flag, along with a small supply of rice, bread and water, as he returned to this city under siege.

The 35-year-old photographer had talked with friends who’d fled to displaced persons camps, and he found their stories of long lines for food and supplies alarming.

“If you need to do anything, you have to wait in a line,” he said of the camps, which have expanded and multiplied since troops entered the city last week.

So as Mosul empties — more than 49,000 have fled the city of 1.2 million since the offensive began last month — another stream of people skirt the gunfire, mortar blasts and suicide attacks as they trudge to neighboring villages for supplies and medicine, then wade back into the mayhem, carrying white flags and shopping bags as they head home.

Staying is risky. Islamic State militants have executed 40 civilians in the city, hanging victims’ bodies on electrical poles, according to the United Nations. The army has advanced to several neighborhoods beyond Zahra in eastern Mosul, but only moved forward about half a mile this weekend, according to special forces commanders.

A mass grave recently discovered by Iraqi troops south of the city contained more than 100 bodies, one of several Islamic State “killing grounds,” U.N. spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said at a briefing in Geneva last week.

Shamdasani said militants are reportedly stockpiling large amounts of ammonia and sulfur in the city, placing them among civilians for possible use as chemical weapons. Attackers with explosive belts are being deployed in the alleyways of Old Mosul, she said, and women have been abducted and “distributed” to fighters or told they will be used to accompany militant convoys.

Mosul taxi driver Abdul Monhan Faris, 26, was in his garage having breakfast Thursday when a mortar struck, killing him. Faraz Munther helped soldiers remove his friend’s body from Zahra.

“Our neighborhood is free, but we have mortars coming from Qadisiya and Tahrir,” he said, referring to adjacent areas of eastern Mosul.

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Menar Hassan, age 8, cries as doctors try to doctor her wounds after a suicide truck bombing. Her father died at the scene and had to be left in the rubble.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Capt. Osama Fuad Rauf, 33, center, and Maj. Mohammed Hassan Abdullah, left, 35, treat a soldier who was wounded in the fight against Islamic State near Mosul.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Wounded soldiers and civilians are carried into a field hospital.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Capt. Osama Fuad Rauf works on a patient as others hold a cellphone for additional light at the Iraqi army’s 9th Armored Division medical clinic.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Wafa Abdel Raza, 39, holds her son Mahmoud Setar, 4, as the doctors give him oxygen and and fluids. The boy’s head was badly injured when a truck bomb exploded near their home. “We were sleeping in the house,” said Raza. “The army was close to us and we made food for them. They were waiting behind the house and a suicide car came.” Her son recovered as the night progressed.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Maj. Gen. Raad Mohssan Dakhel stitches up a soldier’s face after he was injured by a suicide bomb explosion.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Murtada Abdul Amir, right, was struck in the shoulder by the same bullet that hit his friend Muaz Hameed Hussein, left. Capt. Osama Fuad Rauf checks Hussein’s status.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Civilians are taken to Irbil hospital. The man at right was taken into custody on suspicion of being an Islamic State fighter.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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SWAT team member Hussein Ali, 21, sits beside his comrade Bassem Bilal, who was badly injured in a suicide car bombing.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Maj. Gen. Raad Mohssan Dakhel treats a soldier hit by shrapnel from a car bomb.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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At the Iraqi Army’s 9th Armored Division medical clinic, set up in a private home, doctors including Capt. Osama Fuad Rauf, center, gather around the body of a deceased soldier before he is taken to Irbil and on to Baghdad.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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A woman looks out of a dump truck as it arrives at a U.N. campcarrying more than 50 other women and children fleeing the fightingin Mosul.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Waheed Ahmed Hussein hugs his mother Sada Muslat, 71, on the day he was was reunited with his parents after a two-year separationwhile they lived in an Islamic State-held area.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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A truckload of people fleeing fighting in the Mosul area arrives at a United Nations camp.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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People fleeing violence in Mosul and the surrounding areaarrive at the U.N.’s Camp Hassansham.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Waheed Ahmed Hussein, right, greets his relative Adris Mohammed through a fense at Camp Hassansham. They hadn’t seen each other in two years sinceIslamic State took control of Mosul and the surrounding area.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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In the town of Salhiya, members of the Iraqi Army and Iraqi police detain and question men who were coming from the direction of Mosul.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Members of the Iraqi Army and Iraqi police detain suspects in the village of Salhiya, Iraq, who were coming from the direction of Mosul.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Members of the Iraqi Army and Iraqi police patrol the village of Salhiya.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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A man flying a white flag with his rear window shattered, is stopped on the road from Salhiya to Qayarrah.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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On the outskirts of the village of Al Hud, members of the Iraqi Army visit an area where locals say ISIS executed four or five Peshmerga in recent months. Soldiers said another grave site containing more bodies was in the area but was too dangerous to access due to mines.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Some of the several hundred civilians who made their way through and out of Gogjali, Iraq, after the Iraqi army retook control of the district in Mosul.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Iraqi troops patrol Gogjali.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Iraqi special forces Lt. Col Ali Hussein Fadil and his men continue to clear the Gogjali district.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Iraqi forces patrol the Gogjali district of Mosul a day after it was liberated from Islamic State.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Iraqi special forces continue to clear homes in Gogjali on Nov. 2, 2016, after the area was liberated.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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A girl waves a white flag as she and her family leave Gogjali.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Families flee Gogjali after the area was liberated.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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With no place to sleep, a family rests inside an empty store in Mosul’s Gogjali district, where Iraqi forces defeated Islamic State the previous day.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Islamic State posters that were hung in a mosque in the Gogjali district of Mosul, Iraq, are burned the day after the area was liberated from Islamic State control.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Popular mobilization units are helping to clear villages southwest of Mosul, Iraq. On Sunday, they launched mortar rounds a little more than a mile from Islamic State fighters who continued to resist their advance on the city.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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TAL AL-ZAQAA, IRAQ--OCT. 31, 2016--Shiite militia chant before going into battle as they fight alongside Iraq Army forces as they fight ISIS. They launch mortars less than two kilometers from ISIS fighters who continue to resist their advance. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Militias known as popular mobilization units fighting near Mosul are made up mostly of Shiite Muslims.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Militiamennear the village ofZarqastand by as mortars are launched at Islamic State fighters near Mosul.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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An Iraqi special forces soldier rides in a Humvee with a Shiite religious banner flying behind while moving through recently captured territory on the eastern front inthe fight for Mosul on Oct. 28, 2016.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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An Iraqi government Humvee window cracked by Islamic State fire on the eastern front in fight for Mosul.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Lt. Col. Ali Hussein Fadil, center,commands an Iraqi special forces unit in the fight to retake the city of Mosul, including 28-year-old Waleed Abdel Nabi, left.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Waleed Abdel Nabi, afather of four, moves through the town of Bartella by Humvee.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Waleed Abdel Nabi, right, and a fellow Iraqi special force fighter in the town of Bartella.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Waleed Abdel Nabi, 28, clears what appear to be abandoned homes in the advance toward Mosul.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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An Islamic State tunnel entrance found in Bartella by Iraqi special forces.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Iraqi forces patrol in a Humvee east of Mosul as they wait for the next phase of the battle to retakethe city from Islamic State.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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The remains of a burned car.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Sienna Moqtar and her daughter decorate her brother’s grave with rocks. He died last week in the final days of Islamic State in Qayyarah. The bodies of two infant nephews are buried at right.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Ibrahim Atea Ahmed, left, and Daham Ahmed survived the Islamic State attack, but their town was left in bad shape. Oil fires continue to burn, set by militants as cover from air attacks.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Iraqi soldiers head for the front line.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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In the village of Faziliya, recently liberated from Islamic State control, Abdul Gafur, 38, embraces his brother Mohammad Abdul Gafur, 40, after not seeing him for more than two years. Peshmerga forces recaptured the village and escorted Abdul to visit his brother.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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A woman rummages through garbage under smoke-filled skies in the town of Qayyarah. The residents of Qayyarah were liberated from Islamic State forces, but left with destruction and contamination from burning oil wells.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Residents of Qayyarah wait for food and water to be handed out, but very little was distributed. The water in town is not fit to drink.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Iraqi soldiers now control the town of Qayyarah, where bombing destroyed many shops.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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An Iraqi special forces member notes the entrance to a tunnel dug by Islamic State forces in the town of Bartella.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Bisha Khalil, 60, left, welcomes home her son Zihad Farhan, not shown, to the village of Hurriya, where fighting between Islamic State and Iraqi forces caused many to flee about three months ago. The homecoming was dampened by the kidnapping of Khalil’s 18-year-old son, Ibrahim Farhan, by Islamic State militants a week earlier.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Iraqis line up as they return to homesin the villages near Qayyarrah. Many fled their homes three months earlier when government forces battled Islamic State fighters.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Children play in a wrecked car in the village of Hurriya, where fighting between Islamic State and Iraqi forces caused many families to leave.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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As many Iraqis return home, others are fleeing the fighting in villages surrounding Mosul. At a camp for the displaced, about 3,000 people arrived in a week, but many more are expected as the fight for Mosul continues. New arrivals line up for food supplies, provide by the World Food Program.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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An Iraqi boy, newly arrived at a camp for the displaced, carries food provided by the World Food Program.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Soldiers drive through the town of Qayyarah, heavily damaged in the fighting in August and again this month as Islamic State was driven out of town.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Batul Khalil, 60, is having breathing problems with all of the smoke and chemicals in the air in her town of Qayyarah.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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A man leads his cow to find feed in the village of Hurriya, where fighting between Islamic State and Iraqi forces over the last months has left many animals malnourished or dead.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Yasser Mahmoud was among those unwilling or unable to abandon their homes in the face of such perilous urban warfare.

Two weeks ago, Islamic State fighters attacked his house to the west of Zahra in the early morning, breaking down the door, searching his photo studio, raiding the refrigerator and camping out. When they left, Mahmoud went into hiding in Zahra, leaving behind his wife and two children, ages 10 and 6.

His wife doesn’t have a cellphone or Internet access — both banned by Islamic State — so Mahmoud put aside any thought of fleeing. Instead, he waits.

“I still don’t know anything about my family,” he said. “If I did, I might go.”

Ahmed Hassan and his friends also joined the risky caravan to a grocery store from eastern Mosul. Bearded but wearing Reebok track pants and Nike sweatshirts — outlawed brands on the streets of Mosul under Islamic State — they returned home with a single jar of tahini, all they could find on the bare market shelves.

Despite food shortages in the city, Hassan, 30, was reluctant to flee with his three children, ages 3, 2 and 1.

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Iraqi civilians who choose to stay in Mosul.

“I don’t want to take my family to the camps,” he said. “They won’t be able to stand it.”

But if the violence continues, he said, they may reconsider.

“It’s been 11 days since our neighborhood was freed, and they’re still mortaring,” said Hishan Mohammed, 24, a local barber.

The mortar and sniper attacks have shaken the already-chaotic lives of those who live in Mosul. Shops and street markets were still shuttered in Zahra on Saturday. But many left their gated row houses with children in tow to visit neighbors and shop in nearby villages.

Hosam Gadban, 35, left the city with his six children for two days last week, squatting in an abandoned home just east of the city in the village of Gogjali. But without electricity or running water, Gadban said it was “horrible.” He can’t imagine all of them living in a tent and has no intention of leaving, even after their front window was struck by bullets, their house hit by mortar rounds Saturday.

“I prefer to die here in my home,” he said.

His 11-year-old daughter, Iman Gadban, wanted to leave.

“I’m scared. I want to go to a safe place,” she said.

Faraj Saraj, 33, caught a ride out of eastern Mosul in a Humvee, in search of medicine with his 10-year-old daughter, Nasreen. She had been sick to her stomach, a frequent problem since Islamic State stopped treating the tap water, he said.

Faraj Saraj and his daughter Nasreen, 10, plan to go back to their homes after getting medicine at an Iraqi army field clinic.

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times )

The sheep trader found help at an Iraqi army field clinic at the edge of Mosul. Soldiers greeted Nasreen, handing her medicine that she clutched close to her pink plaid dress.

Other families passed on their way out of the city. But Saraj said he was not ready to give up on Mosul.

“We are worried about going to the camps,” he said. “It’s been overcrowded. It will be a while before they let us back in.”

If they did leave, he said, it would be difficult to get permission to return to Mosul once their neighborhood near Zahra is freed.

And so, as gunfire crackled, he led his ill daughter back around a dirt barrier at the edge of the city on the treacherous trek home.

Iraqi troops try to help civilians who want to stay and those bent on leaving, Lt. Col. Mohammed Tamimi said from his command post in an abandoned house in Zahra. They help transport those fleeing, but also ensure those staying have ample food and water, he said.

“We are not forcing people to stay, but if they want help, we are offering it,” he said.

Other commanders said the presence of civilians in embattled neighborhoods has complicated the fight to wrestle Mosul from Islamic State.

While some residents pass along helpful information to the troops , others aid and shelter the militants, said Lt. Col. Ali Hussein Fadil.

“Some families will open their doors for fighters to move,” he said. One woman was seen baking bread on the roof of a house this week as Islamic State snipers inside her home fired at the army.

“Because of the civilians, our advances slowed,” said Capt. Mohammed Ibrahim, hovering near patients at the field clinic.

A small crowd of families who had fled were herded into a nearby abandoned house to await transport to a camp for the displaced. Some said they feared being imprisoned at the camps, where the newly arrived are screened and kept behind barbed wire fences.

Women and children who had just escaped the violence inside Mosul, by walking out, rest in a house before being transported to a displaced person’s camp near Erbil, Iraq.

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times )

Samir Sabri had never left Mosul before his grocery run last week.

Two hours later, he and a friend returned carrying plastic bags of chicken, rice, tomatoes and cigarettes — forbidden under Islamic State.

“Our families are there, so we are going back,” said Sabri, 36, who works at a laundry.

Fleeing their neighborhood near Zahra was not an option, said Hassan Mohammed, 36.

“Where would we go?” he wondered

They had already been displaced within the city.

“We left our houses and went to houses where the army told us to stay. But we are not going to the camps,” Sabri said. He said they will wait for the army to free the city. Then they hope to return home.

Some friends with white flags waved from across the dirt road. The pair joined them on their walk back to the city as gunfire rattled and mortar shells landed ahead of them, a column of dark smoke filling the sky.

An Iraqi soldier stopped them.

“Where are you going?” he said.

One of the men pointed toward the smoke.

“OK,” the soldier said. “God be with you.”

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Twitter: @mollyhf

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