Soldiers with the Nineveh Plain Forces on a training exercise in Tel Eskof, Iraq [Adam Lucente/Al Jazeera]
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aljazeera.com
By Adam Lucente,
26/5/2016
As
anti-ISIL operations near Mosul continue, many are sheltering at camps in
Iraq's Kurdish region.
Baqofah,
Iraq - Broken tools and damaged vehicles line the narrow streets of the Iraqi
Christian village of Baqofah.
Electricity
flickers on and off in the homes, most of which have been trashed. Mortars
fired by fighters with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also
known as ISIS) lie just outside the village walls.
Like
many Christian villages in Iraq's Nineveh region, Baqofah was seized by ISIL
and ransacked in 2014, only to be retaken by Kurdish Peshmerga fighters soon
afterwards. While the area has remained relatively calm since then,
neighbouring Tel Eskof recently came under
attack again by ISIL suicide bombers and snipers. ISIL-occupied Batnay,
meanwhile, is just a few kilometres away.
The
violence has prompted many Iraqi Christians in the area to flee to camps for
internally displaced people throughout Iraq's Kurdish region. As anti-ISIL
operations near Mosul continue, many are reluctant to return home.
"The
first thing we ask for is safety. We need our own forces to protect us after
the liberation," Mansour Sharbil, who fled from the Christian town of
Qaraqosh and is now staying at Erbil's Ankawa 2 camp for internally displaced
people, told Al Jazeera. The camp, which sits next to a camp called Ankawa 1,
currently hosts around 5,500 displaced Iraqi Christians, who live in caravans
and subsist on aid from NGOs and churches.
"When
they are liberated, we'll return," added camp resident Ibrahim Shaba Lalo,
who is also from Qaraqosh. "But without international protection, it will
be very hard to return."
This
year, the Peshmerga and the Iraqi army began operations to retake the area surrounding Mosul from ISIL,
including some Christian-majority parts of Nineveh. Residents have started to
return to some villages, while others remain in the hands of ISIL. Still others
are uninhabited, serving as bases for the Peshmerga and Christian paramilitary
groups.
Some
camp residents expressed frustration that the US-led anti-ISIL coalition has so
far failed to restore safety to their villages. But on the frontlines in
Baqofah and Tel Eskof, Christian paramilitaries say they are ready to protect
their villages after ISIL is pushed out of the broader area.
"We'
re ready any time," said Safaa Khamro, a soldier in the Nineveh Plain
Forces, a Christian paramilitary group. He blamed political squabbling,
including a disagreement between Baghdad and the regional Kurdish government
over who has jurisdiction in the area, for the slow pace of progress.
"The
political crisis between Baghdad and the [Kurdistan Regional Government] is the
reason we haven't taken [this territory back] yet," Khamro told Al
Jazeera.
Brigadier-General
Helgurd Hikmet Mela Ali, media director at the Ministry of Peshmerga, said the
timeline for retaking Greater Mosul was not the Peshmerga's decision. "The
international coalition and the Iraqi army will decide the start," Helgurd
told Al Jazeera.
"The
main reasons Mosul hasn't been liberated lie with the Iraqi army, because up to
now, they are not ready to start."
From
the Iraqi army's perspective, on the other hand, the battle for Mosul is moving
along as planned. "Definitely the Iraqi army is ready to take the city [Mosul]
from ISIL, and we have expelled them from part of the area south of the
city," Brigadier-General Firas Bashar, spokesman for the Iraqi army's
Liberation of Nineveh Operations command, told Al Jazeera. Operations in this
area began last March.
Bashar
paints Peshmerga-Iraqi army coordination in a more positive light than the
Kurdish and Christian fighters in Tel Eskof. "Our relationship with the
Peshmerga is one of permanent coordination," he added. "This is
because ISIL kills all who fight them, whether they're Muslim, Christian or
Yazidi."
Romeo
Hakari, secretary-general of the Bet-Nahrain Democratic Party, which is
affiliated with the Nineveh Plain Forces, said international cooperation was
necessary to secure Nineveh's liberation.
"We
need to wait for international cooperation," Hakari told Al Jazeera from
his Erbil office. "The decision is not a local one; it's in the
West."
Back
in Baqofah, a Peshmerga soldier sits in a central village booth, holding an
AK-47. Just outside the village walls, a Peshmerga unit and fighters with Dwekh
Nawsha, an allied Assyrian Christian paramilitary group, guard the perimeter
from inside two local homes.
"We
guard Baqofah all day and night," said Samir Oraha, a Dwekh Nawsha leader.
A large pair of binoculars sits atop their base for this purpose, trained
towards ISIL-occupied Batnay.
"Our
relationship is very good with the Christians," said General Tarek
Suleiman, who serves next door with the Peshmerga in Tel Eskof. "We work
together like brothers."
Nineveh's
Christians, meanwhile, eagerly await the day when they can safely return home
to their villages. Many residents of the Ankawa 2 camp do not work, citing a
lack of opportunities for displaced Iraqis.
"It's
like living in prison here," Lalo said. "We want to see our
homes."
Mortars fired by ISIL at the Peshmerga and Dwekh Nawsha litter the ground in Baqofah, Iraq [Adam Lucente/Al Jazeera]
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