Mosul, from diversity and tolerance to dogmatic fanaticism and ruthless war
Danilo Anton

Mosul is a city in Iraq capital of the province (Governorate) of Nineveh, on the west bank of the Tigris River in a semidesert area, where the river is being used for irrigated agricultural production, particularly through the damming of the fluvial water. The city is also near oil fields of high productivity.
Before the occupation by the ISIS there were about two and a half million people. From the population point of view is the second largest city in Iraq, the most important of the northern region (400 km from Baghdad). Is the heir to the ancient city of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire in the first millennium B.C. whose ruins are on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, now covered by the metropolitan growth of Mosul.
Until recently, only a few decades, Mosul and the surrounding area had an ethnically and religiously diverse population. Arabs, Assyrians, Armenians, Kurds, Turkmen, Yazidis, Shabakis, Mandaeans, kawliyas, Circassians and other ethnic minorities who lived a peaceful coexistence in the city. There were also several religious orientations: Sunni, Salafi, Shi'a, Sufi, Christian Armenians and Assyrians, Yazidis, Shabakites,Yarsanites and Mandaeistes. The once large Jewish community had emigrated (mostly to Israel) from the 1950s due to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Once ISIS arrived, with its policies of persecution and intolerance, in 2014, more than half a million people fled the city, the rest was prisoner of a dogmatic regime, deeply intolerant and cruel.
Now, finally, after many hesitations and diplomatic discussions, a large army is advancing on the city. The invading forces include the Iraqi government, Kurdish peshmerga and other allies, with air support from the US and Western European countries. Surely thecity will finally conquered but not without fighting bloody battles for control of all its neighborhoods. Probably, like Homs and Aleppo in Syria, Mosul will be destroyed, reduced to ruins.
In a few decades, the city where a great diversity of ethnicities, religions and cultures, with varied customs lived in peace, has become a place of dogmatism, perverse intolerance, war and destruction.
More info at daniloanton@blogspot.com and in the book "Tierras de Pocas Lluvias y Mucha Sangre" (order in dantonster@gmail.com).