Qayyarah’s 20,000 residents celebrated in the streets after Iraqi forces drove out the militants. Locals were lucky on two counts: Not only did they live to see an end to 26 months of terror, hunger and repression, but they also weren’t displaced by the battle to retake the city.
"People were joyous when the security forces told them over the loudspeakers that were now safe,” 36-year-old resident Abu Haidar told NIQASH. “We went out to the streets to cheer and applaud the Iraqi soldiers after shaving our beards, and smokers lit their cigarettes publicly and blew the white smoke up in the air in a festive manner.”
Their oppressors had imposed a strict dress code and banned indulgences such as smoking.
But some of these smiling faces were concealing the fear that these new forces might bring fresh troubles, as IS preachers had promised. Now, more than two weeks after the arrival of the Iraqi forces, these fears appear to be fading.
"Civilians did not suffer from any violations and the town did not witness any revenge acts,” said mayor al-Jibouri.
There has been another troubling development outside of town, though. IS fighters set fire to surrounding oil fields to prevent the advancement of the Iraqi forces, and fire fighters have yet to quell the blazes.
"We are afraid of an environmental disaster due to the fires, and the leakage of large quantities of crude oil into residential neighborhoods, especially as firefighters have been working hard over the last 10 days to extinguish the fires but haven't yet succeeded,” al-Jibouri said.
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