After passing through various hands – from Hussein to the US military to the Iraqi government and then to the IS group - the palaces have now become a base for the Shiite militias. Nobody can even approach the area without express permission from the militia leaders. One of the palaces is thought to be the site of one of the IS group's most heinous massacres, where they killed around 1,000 young soldiers and there are excavations going on in the palace gardens to find corpses.
Elsewhere in the city, houses and buildings and even mosque walls are covered in graffiti, often of a religious nature, or praising the heroism of the fighters from the Shiite militias who participated in the fight against the IS group here. They say things like: “The soldiers of Karbala were here”. And: “The heroes of Basra defeated terrorism here”. Some of the slogans have apparently been removed on orders from the Iraqi government because they were written in Persian, a reflection of the Iraqi government's growing unease at Iranian influence among the Shiite militias.
In the western part of the city, a former police headquarters has become a central point for all of the forces here. There are military and police vehicles parked outside as well as unmarked cars and trucks used by the Shiite Muslim militias. Inside the officers and militia leaders have apparently been discussing how to facilitate the return of civilians to their city. But the subject is a complicated one and it doesn't seem like much progress has been made.
The former administrators of the city remain in Baghdad or Samarra and they organise anything they need to from there. “The Shiite factions want revenge and they believe that we are traitors,” one of the officials from the provincial administration told NIQASH anonymously because he was not authorised to speak to media. “I have no idea why they treat us this way when we actually helped with the liberation of the city.”
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