QAYYARA,
Iraq (Reuters) - It gets darker earlier these days in the northern
Iraqi town of Qayyara, which Islamic State militants abandoned about a
week ago after setting fire to many of the region's oil wells.
Smoke
billowing into the sky during a Reuters visit on Monday blotted out the
sun in central districts hours before nightfall, producing an
apocalyptic scene in this desert settlement which lacks electricity amid
49 degree Celsius (120°F) temperatures.
The
Iraqi military's recapture of Qayyara, along with a nearby airbase in
July, is the latest and most significant advance in a U.S.-backed push
to Mosul, the largest city under Islamic State control anywhere in its
self-proclaimed caliphate.
Baghdad
wants to retake Mosul before the end of the year, which it says will
effectively end the militants' presence in Iraq more than two years
after they seized a third of its territory. Some officials from
countries in the U.S.-led coalition supporting the Iraqi forces have
said that timeline may be too ambitious.
Yet
the loss of Qayyara certainly dealt a blow to Islamic State, which had
extracted oil from some 60 wells and sold it to help finance its
activities.
Islamic
State used to ship at least 50 tanker truckloads a day from Qayyara and
nearby Najma oilfields to neighboring Syria. A sign remains on the main
road announcing prices of crude in places like the Syrian city of
Aleppo, 550 km (340 miles) west of Qayyara.
Rudimentary
refineries once used to refine oil for local consumption have been
abandoned on the side of the road leading east out of the town.
The
smell of petrol now overwhelms the area, wind carrying the smoke from
well fires into the town center. More than a few minutes in the area
leaves one's throat burning, and children walking the streets have
quickly developed coughs.
Abdel Aziz Saleh, a 25-year-old Qayyara resident, said he wants Baghdad to put out the fires as soon as possible.
"They
are suffocating us," he said. "The birds, the animals are black, the
people are black. Gas rains down on us at night. Now the gas has reached
the residential areas."
He
and other residents said oil had spilled into the nearby Tigris River -
assertions denied by the oil ministry, which said the oil spills had
been contained by trenches. While several bodies were seen floating in
the river on Monday, Reuters could not confirm it had been contaminated
with oil.
Iraq
says it has put out fires at four oil wells in the Qayyara region, but
Reuters could not locate any such efforts at the wells closest to
residential areas.
Around
a dozen separate plumes of smoke were still distinguishable across the
horizon as night fell, when a convoy of firetrucks approached the town.
It
was not immediately clear how long it will take to extinguish the
flames. When Iraq's military torched hundreds of Kuwaiti oil wells in
1991 ahead of advancing U.S.-led forces, most fires burned for around
two months but some wells were not capped for almost a year.
The
oil ministry said it does not expect to resume production from the
Qayyara region before Mosul's recapture. The two main fields, Qayyara
and Najma, used to produce 30,000 barrels per day of heavy crude before
the takeover by Islamic State.
PEOPLE IN THE STREETS
Despite
the well fires, Qayyara remains full of inhabitants. Whereas civilians
in most other areas recaptured from Islamic State fled ahead of or
during government offensives the majority of Qayyara's roughly 20,000
residents have stayed put.
A
counter-terrorism officer said that was partly due to the speed with
which the army recaptured Qayyara, surprising the Islamic State fighters
before they were able to dig in. Qayyara is also located near a
military airfield, so many residents in the area have relatives in the
army.
With
no power and no more fear of punishment from Islamic State's harsh
rule, much of the population was in the streets on Monday, waving to
military vehicles that handed out basic supplies like cooking oil, sugar
and canned food.
Children
flashed peace signs and some played in the black reflective pools of
oil that spilled into main streets after Islamic State blew up pipelines
and wells next to a main hospital in a likely attempt to obstruct
visibility for coalition air strikes.
Commanders
are confident electricity can be restored soon in Qayyara and said
booby trapped streets and buildings are less of a concern than they were
in the western cities of Ramadi and Falluja.
"We
surrounded them quickly, so they didn't have time to lay many IEDs
(improvised explosive devices)," said the officer from the elite
counter-terrorism service (CTS), which spearheaded the Qayyara operation
along with the army's 9th armored division.
"There were a lot on the main street they thought we would use to enter but instead we came in from the desert."
The militants still managed to put up a fight, he said, quickly mustering five vehicle-borne IEDs to attack the forces.
The
approach to the city shows signs of the fighting that followed, with
many buildings collapsed by aerial bombardment. The U.S.-led coalition
said it had launched more than 500 air strikes in support of Iraqi
forces, nearly as many as in last year's battle for the much larger city
of Ramadi.
Qayyara
and its nearby airbase - where the bulk of a 560-strong U.S. troop
reinforcement will be based - will form the main staging base for the
anticipated offensive on Mosul, 60 km (35 miles) to the north.
Many
neighborhoods in Qayyara appear mostly or completely intact, and
civilians, many of whom appeared to have recently shaved the beards that
Islamic State requires men to grow, said they feel safe in their homes.
After
showing off the body of an Islamic State fighter crushed when the
building he was in was hit by an air strike, two men from Qayyara
alerted soldiers to a possible suicide bomber hiding in a nearby home,
which they proceeded to investigate.
A hundred meters from the decomposing corpse, a well fire burned, spewing smoke and bright flashes into the sky.
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