The former administrator of the office was assassinated in front of his house in Mosul in 2006 and after several other murders, employees in the department grew more and more fearful – they no longer wanted to do their jobs properly and preferred to do mundane, daily tasks rather than registering property properly. Eventually the department was closed and it was also announced that many cases of fraud had been found after records there were examined.
Even before the group managed to take over the rest of Mosul in early June, they had been extorting money from local business owners in the part of the city where they had the most influence, including charging extra fees on Christian-owned properties. In May, extremists banned the sale of Christian properties in that area, saying that the real estate no longer belonged to the Christians and they began chasing any agents out of the neighbourhoods, threatening them with death.
Alla says that the IS group already had agents inside the local authority’s real estate registration offices. Local security forces knew about this, and before they left Mosul in June, made regular announcements about arresting members of extremist groups who had in their possession property records and other official items from the registration office.
Even before they occupied Mosul fully, the IS group and their allies were trying to control local property registers, a former employee at the office, whose identity could not be revealed because of security concerns, told NIQASH. The employee, who is still in Mosul, confirmed to NIQASH that the extremists are going to rent out, sell or lease the real estate they are now in control of.
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