Hope in Mosul

For the title of world’s most benighted city, Mosul takes some beating. Liberated from Saddam Hussein by US forces in 2003, the ancient Assyrian town was pummelled by years of insurgency before being seized by Isis in 2014 and its population subjected to militant theocracy. It has no water supply, no infrastructure, it has been gutted by occupation and there are some 850,000 displaced citizens. The Iraqi government’s long and bloody battle to regain what remains of Mosul culminated this week in a visit by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to declare victory.

Many will find it hard to see anything to celebrate, given the destruction that has been wrought in the nine-month campaign to free the city from Isis control. The Isis practice of using local people as human shields has meant a deplorably high number of civilian casualties. Not since the siege of Leningrad has war left a city so deep in ruins.