The horrors of the Islamic State group's rule over northern Iraq may be in the past, but efforts to bring the jihadists to justice are still gathering pace.
"A lot of work remains to be done," said the UN's chief investigator Christian Ritscher, who is looking into a slew of IS atrocities, from murder, torture and mass rape to slavery and genocide.
Five years after the group's defeat in Iraq, with many thousands of their members in Iraqi jails, work is ongoing to probe their crimes, said Ritscher, who heads the dedicated UN investigative team (UNITAD) seeking to promote accountability.
In a Baghdad interview, the German former prosecutor described the grim task — undertaken with the cooperation of Iraqi authorities — as "challenging" and diverse in scope.
"We have just opened an investigation into the destruction of the cultural heritage of Iraq by IS — the destruction of mausoleums, churches, cultural sites, museums," Ritscher told AFP.
A future investigation will focus on crimes committed in Mosul, a major city in Iraq's north which IS occupied from 2014 until 2017, he added.
Iraq declared victory over IS on December 9, 2017, but the group kept its grip on territory in neighbouring Syria until March 2019, when it was defeated by US-backed, Kurdish-led forces.
The rise of IS and its self-proclaimed "caliphate" appeared meteoric. Its seizure of Mosul helped it to briefly hold roughly one-third of Iraqi territory, and for a time there were real fears of a major attack on the capital Baghdad.
Abuses against civilians, minorities and opponents became a hallmark of the group, whose ranks swelled with the arrival of thousands of foreign nationals.
The list of IS crimes is long, Ritscher said, and includes "genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes".
– International justice –
UNITAD has supported local authorities that uncover mass graves and is working to prepare evidence for "any jurisdiction in the world that needs it… even within several decades", Ritscher said.
"In 20 or 30 years, the perpetrators of international crimes will still be able to be judged. There is no limitation period. This could be done in Canada, the Netherlands, Malaysia, and of course in Iraq."
In its latest report, presented to the UN Security Council on Monday, UNITAD highlighted IS's production of chemical and biological weapons.
The programme included "the development, testing, weaponisation and deployment of a range of chemical agents", according to the report.
UNITAD also investigated the Speicher massacre — when up to 1,700 "predominantly Shiite" Iraqi army cadets were abducted from a base and executed in June 2014.
Other atrocities examined were the deaths of hundreds of detainees from Badush prison, near Mosul, and crimes against the Yazidis, a religious minority many of whose men were executed and whose women were abducted for sexual slavery.
In 2021, a German court sentenced former IS member Taha al-Jumailly, who had let a five-year-old Yazidi girl in chains die of thirst, to life in prison for genocide and crimes against humanity — the first verdict of its kind worldwide.
The landmark trial was held under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which holds that any national court can prosecute such crimes no matter where they were committed.
"Maybe in the future there will be a tribunal on IS crimes," Ritscher said, adding that the idea is subject to "ongoing discussions".
– 'Fair trials' –
Iraqi authorities do not release statistics on IS captives, but in 2018 the UN estimated more than 12,000 Iraqi and foreign "combatants" were being held in its prisons.
Richter insisted UNITAD can only contribute to "fair trials", where there is no room for "torture or any element contravening human rights".
Previously, Iraq has been admonished over hundreds of so-called "speedy trials", with human rights groups flagging confessions obtained under torture, ineffective legal representation and verdicts delivered after rushed hearings.
Iraq's courts have handed down hundreds of death sentences and life imprisonment terms.
They have also sentenced several hundred foreign IS members, including women, to prison or even death, but no foreigners have been executed.
Ritscher said trials must be "fair and evidence-based, including witnesses who can testify in court, victims who can tell the whole story and tell the court what happened to them".
"This is what we are aiming for, not trials based on confessions," he added.
He expressed hope that the work could help achieve reconciliation in Iraq, a country where many years of war and insurgency have ripped apart its diverse social fabric.
"Reconciliation is always a result of investigations and of fair trials where the victims have a voice and can tell their story," he said.
Iraq's Mosul healing slowly, five years after IS defeat
Mosul, Iraq (AFP) Dec 7, 2022 – Five years after it emerged from the Islamic State group's jihadist rule, Iraq's once thriving cultural centre of Mosul has regained a semblance of normalcy despite sluggish reconstruction efforts.
However, like in much of oil-rich but war-ravaged Iraq, ramshackle public services and deep economic difficulties continue to hamper people's daily lives.
Ghazwan Turki is just one of Mosul's many residents who struggle to make ends meet in the former IS stronghold, where the jihadists declared the establishment of a "caliphate" in 2014.
Mosul urgently needs "job opportunities for families that have no income, to improve their living conditions", Turki said.
The father of 12 and aged in his 40s, who lived for years in displacement camps, juggles shifts as a taxi driver and different odd jobs.
"We have to borrow money and get into debt to cover half of our family's needs," said Turki, who shares a single-storey house with his brother.
While acknowledging "progress" in rebuilding efforts, he described "overcrowded schools, where there are 60 or 70 students to a classroom".
Iraqi forces with the help of a US-led coalition wrested back Mosul in July 2017 after gruelling street fighting, and Iraq claimed victory over IS on December 9 that year.
Signs of reconstruction dot the city of 1.5 million, with workers constructing a new bridge, and cafes and restaurants buzzing.
But many buildings and public hospitals are still in ruins, and in the Old City, some areas are still just piles of rubble.
– 'Lack of jobs' –
Mosul, Iraq's second city, has historically been among the Arab world's most culturally significant settlements — a hub for trade and home to mosques, churches, shrines, tombs and libraries.
Today, in the wider Nineveh province, a third of people are estimated to be unemployed and 40 percent live in poverty, according to local authorities.
The Norwegian Refugee Council, which has provided aid to some 100,000 Mosul residents, has noted "rising unemployment, high dropout rates (at schools), and limited economic opportunities across the city".
NRC's communication coordinator Noor Taher said that although reconstruction continues, many people are particularly worried about "under-resourced schools, overstretched teachers and lack of jobs".
The International Rescue Committee says that "economic conditions in Mosul remain dire for many families".
An IRC survey of over 400 homes reported "an alarming spike" in child labour rates, with around 90 percent of families sending at least one minor to work and some three-quarters toiling in "informal and dangerous roles" such as construction, or litter and scrap metal collection.
Mayor Amin al-Memari said the city was working on several "strategic projects", but funding remained a key obstacle.
Despite the construction of about 350 schools in just two years, Mosul still needs 1,000 more to end the "chokehold" in education, Memari added.
There is also "a significant shortage in the health sector," he said, with more hospitals needed, including with oncology and cardiovascular surgery departments.
"Before, we had all of this in Mosul," Memari said.
– 'Spirit of Old Mosul' –
In Mosul's war-damaged Old City — only steps from the iconic Al-Nuri mosque, where former IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made his only confirmed public appearance — Bytna ("Our Home") cafe is busy.
But when co-founder Bandar Ismail opened it in 2018, people were sceptical.
"We tried to revive the spirit of Old Mosul by opening this cafe, to attract residents and draw them back to this neighbourhood," 26-year-old Ismail said.
"At first… people mocked us and said 'who will come here?' The whole area was destroyed, there must have been just two families here."
Today, customers sip coffee and smoke their hookahs in the cafe, which also hosts musical performances and art events.
Even French President Emmanuel Macron dropped by during a visit in 2021.
Nearby, bakeries and restaurants have reopened.
"There is more stability, more security," Ismail said.
Timeline: Islamic State group's rise and fall
Paris (AFP) Dec 7, 2022 –
Five years ago, on December 9, 2017, Iraq claimed victory over the once powerful Islamic State group, which had proclaimed a "caliphate" and seized a large chunk of the country.
A little more than a year later, the jihadist group would also be defeated in Syria, where three of its leaders were killed, and reduced to a network of sleeper cells.
Here is a timeline of the rise and fall of IS.
– 2014: 'Caliphate' declared –
The group, then known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, makes sweeping territorial gains and declares in June 2014 an Islamic "caliphate" under the leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Raqa, in northern Syria, and Mosul, Iraq's second-biggest city, become its two de-facto capitals.
– Yazidi massacre –
Rebranded the Islamic State, the group carries out beheadings, mass executions, rapes, abductions and ethnic cleansing in Raqa.
Some atrocities are broadcast for use as propaganda.
In Iraq, IS seizes in August 2014 the historic home of the Yazidi minority in Sinjar region, forcing children to become soldiers and using thousands of women as sex slaves.
United Nations special investigators in 2021 report they have collected "clear and convincing evidence" of genocide by IS against the Yazidis.
– US-led coalition –
Washington in August 2014 forms a coalition of more than 70 countries to fight IS in Iraq and Syria, mainly through air strikes.
The United States deploys around 5,000 soldiers to the region.
– 2017: Defeats in Iraq –
Iraq announces in March 2015 the "liberation" of Tikrit, north of the capital Baghdad. Kurdish forces in November retake the city of Sinjar.
The Anbar provincial capital Ramadi and nearby Fallujah are retaken the following year.
And in July 2017, then-Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi declares the jihadists' defeat in Mosul.
On December 9, Abadi announces a final victory against IS.
– 2019: Ousted from Syria –
Kurdish forces drive IS out of the Syrian city of Kobane, on the Turkish border, in January 2015.
In August 2016, the US-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) recaptures Manbij in Aleppo province.
Turkish-backed Syrian rebels retake Jarabulus, and then, in February 2017, Al-Bab, the last IS bastion in Aleppo province.
In March, Syrian troops backed by Russian jets take back the ancient town of Palmyra, and in October the SDF announces the full recapture of Raqa.
The SDF proclaims the defeat of the "caliphate" in March 2019 after seizing Baghouz, IS's final bastion in Syria.
– Leader killed –
Washington announces on October 27, 2019 that IS leader Baghdadi detonated a suicide vest during an overnight raid by US special forces deep in northwest Syria, killing himself and three of his children.
– 2021: Baghdad bombing –
In January 2021, IS claims responsibility for a twin suicide attack at a Baghdad market that killed 32 people, the first such assault in the city for more than three years.
A UN report in February says the jihadist group has "10,000 active fighters" in Syria and Iraq.
– US 'combat mission' ends –
Washington announces in December 2021 that the international coalition has "finished its combat mission" in Iraq.
Some 2,500 US soldiers and 1,000 coalition troops remain deployed there as trainers.
– 2022: Prison offensive –
Jihadists storm in January 2022 Syria's Ghwayran prison in the northeastern city of Hasakeh, in an assault described as one of IS's most significant since its defeat.
Over several days of fighting, hundreds of people die before Kurdish forces regain control.
– Baghdadi's successors killed –
IS's second leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi, blows himself up in February 2022 during a US raid in northwestern Syria.
He is replaced by Abu Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, who IS says on November 30 has been killed in battle.
The group names Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi as its third leader in less than a year.
