ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Large parts of Mosul remain in ruins and political rivalries have crippled the city’s ability to rebuild. Against this backdrop, there is a worrying trend of crime by persons taking advantage of the instability, say officials, stressing that ISIS is not the problem. “Numerous incidents” have happened in the city, said Gen. Hamad Nams, head of Nineveh Provincial Police, in a press conference on Tuesday. He listed multiple homicides and bombings, including the November 8 explosion in front of a popular restaurant. The police concluded that these were not terror acts, said the police chief. “Most people attribute these incidents to ISIS… However, some incidents that happen are aimed at creating sedition and confusion in the province,” Nams said, adding that local quarrels are to blame for some of the crimes. Sherwan Dubardani, a Kurdish member of the Iraqi parliament from Mosul, is a member of the parliamentary committee looking into the fall of Mosul to ISIS. He agrees with the police assessment that ISIS is not responsible for recent crimes and insecurity. To the west and south of Mosul, there is a lot of ISIS movement and 1,000 square kilometres devoid of a military presence, said Dubardani, but the militants are not responsible for bombings in the city. “These explosions are far from ISIS,” he told ISIS. “There is political and economic competition in Mosul, thus such explosions happen.” The police are struggling to rebuild their force that was decimated when they failed to stand against ISIS militants when they swept across northern Iraq in 2014. Thousands of members of the security forces were sacked. The Ministry of Interior has reinstated some 3,700 police in Mosul and Nams said they have the names of more than 7,000 who they want to see back on the job. The province is also populated with a glut of armed groups – Hashd al-Shaabi militias backed by political forces and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) smuggling weapons, oil, and cigarettes, according to Dubardani. “The Mosul operations command, the police, and even the governor can’t handle them. They work publicly in Mosul,” he said. The Sunni tribal Hashd, he claimed, are not being paid salaries so have resorted to blackmailing to come up with money. “There is a lot of money and a lot of stealing,” he said. Many businesses have fled Mosul because of the situation, leaving locals worried about how the city will rebuild. “This is affecting the movement of trade,” Zaid Abduljabbar, a civil activist from Mosul, told Rudaw. “Investors won’t return to an area where there isn’t any security.” He accused political factions of destabilizing the province with their rivalries and then striking fear in the hearts of people by attributing security incidents to ISIS. “There are security breaches. They are not from terrorists. They are from political forces,” he said. These groups are free to operate as “even the prime minister doesn’t have influence over them,” Abduljabbar added. The people of Mosul voted for former Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in the election last year. He was denied a second term in office after deadly protests erupted in the south of the country over the summer. Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi has put a lot of focus on the southern province of Basra and has little connection with Mosul. The parliamentary committee looking into Mosul, which Dubardani sits on, released a report on March 14 accusing the governor of corruption. It is expected Governor Nawfal Hamadi will be stripped of major powers, summoned to parliament, and eventually fired. After living under the horrors of ISIS and seeing their city smashed in the war to oust the militants, the people of Mosul hope to see a new era of peace and stability. They “won’t allow the return of terror,” said Abduljabbar
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