{"id":41356,"date":"2019-10-27T23:22:24","date_gmt":"2019-10-27T23:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=41356"},"modified":"2019-10-27T23:22:24","modified_gmt":"2019-10-27T23:22:24","slug":"gantz-meets-netanyahu-for-israeli-coalition-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=41356","title":{"rendered":"Gantz meets Netanyahu for Israeli coalition talks"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nMOSUL: Five years after he made their hometown infamous as the heart of his \u201ccaliphate,\u201d residents of Iraq\u2019s Mosul said Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi\u2019s death should be marked only one way \u2014 with \u201ca huge party.\u201d
In June 2014, Al-Baghdadi climbed a set of stairs at the Al-Nuri Mosque in the northern Iraqi city and declared himself \u201ccaliph\u201d over millions of people in Iraq and Syria.
The announcement unleashed a volley of violence that killed thousands, displaced millions and left cities across both countries in ruin \u2014 including Mosul.
On Sunday, US President Donald Trump announced Al-Baghdadi\u2019s death in a US special operations raid some 700 kilometers (430 miles) away in rural northwestern Syria.
\u201cThe people of Mosul should have a huge party,\u201d said 37-year-old city resident Khaled Waleed, wearing a baseball camp and white shirt.
\u201cThis criminal, this butcher Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, he killed and slaughtered everyone,\u201d he said bitterly.
Born in Iraq\u2019s western Samarra in 1971, Ibrahim Awad Al-Badri took up the name Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi as he rose through the ranks to become Daesh\u2019s feared chieftain.
His fighters burst into Mosul in the summer of 2014 and he made his first and only public appearance shortly afterwards to declare an Islamic \u201ccaliphate.\u201d
Extremists imposed a strict interpretation of \u201csharia\u201d there: music and smoking were banned, and any perceived violations were met with brutal punishments \u2014 including public beheadings.
\u201cI\u2019ve had three strokes because of Daesh,\u201d recalled Hani Mahmoud, 54.
\u201cMy house burned down. My car was set on fire,\u201d said the portly man with a closely-trimmed white beard.
Umm Alaa, an Iraqi woman dressed in a worn black robe, said Al-Baghdadi \u201cmade our lives hell.\u201d
\u201cThere\u2019s not a single house they didn\u2019t attack, not a single house they didn\u2019t oppress,\u201d she said.
\u201cThis is a festival, a festival for all Iraqis because he destroyed us,\u201d she added.
Daesh kept Mosul in its grip for three years, until a ferocious offensive by US-backed Iraqi troops ousted the extremists in 2017.
But the group left behind a horrifying legacy.
Many of Mosul\u2019s neighborhoods, particularly the historic Old City which was the last area to be retaken, remain in ruins.
Slabs of concrete hang off destroyed and abandoned buildings like oversized hangnails.
The historic Al-Nuri Mosque stands gutted and covered in graffiti, while the adjacent ancient minaret \u2014 long the city\u2019s symbol \u2014 was blown up in the violence.
Many residents have yet to return because their houses remain littered with unexploded ordnance or are damaged beyond habitation.
There are some 200 mass graves across the country where the remains of thousands of suspected Daesh victims have yet to be identified.
Several thousand people from the Yazidi minority are still missing, five years after Daesh ravaged their heartland near Mosul.
Bashar Hussam, 31, survived life under Daesh \u2014 unlike his father.
\u201cMy father had a blood clot and they didn\u2019t let us leave until he died in front of my own eyes,\u201d Hussam said.
While glad to see Baghdadi perish, he said it was not quite the happy ending he had hoped for.
\u201cWe want the other good news \u2014 that they rebuild our houses, that we go back to work and to our livelihoods.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MOSUL: Five years after he made their hometown infamous as the heart of his \u201ccaliphate,\u201d residents of Iraq\u2019s Mosul said Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi\u2019s death should be marked only one way \u2014 with \u201ca huge party.\u201dIn June 2014, Al-Baghdadi climbed a set of stairs at the Al-Nuri Mosque in the northern Iraqi city and declared himself…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":41357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}