Daesh has quashed a rebellion plot in Mosul, led by one of the group’s commanders who aimed to switch sides and help deliver the caliphate’s Iraqi capital to government forces, residents and Iraqi security officials said.
Daesh executed 58 people suspected of taking part in the plot after it was uncovered last week. Residents, who spoke to Reuters from some of the few locations in the city that have phone service, said the plotters were killed by drowning and their bodies were buried in a mass grave in a wasteland on the outskirts of the city.
Among them was a local aide of Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, who led the plotters, according to matching accounts given by five residents, by Hisham Al-Hashimi, an expert on Daesh affairs that advises the government in Baghdad and by colonel Ahmed Al-Taie, from Mosul’s Nineveh province Operation Command’s military intelligence.
The names of the plot leader are not being published to avoid increasing the safety risk for his family and those inside the city who spoke about the plot.
The aim of the plotters was to undermine Daesh’s defence of Mosul in the upcoming fight, expected to be the biggest battle in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion.
Mosul is the last major stronghold of Daesh in Iraq. With a pre-war population of around two million, it is at least five times the size of any other city Daesh has controlled. Iraqi officials say a massive ground assault could begin this month, backed by US air power, Kurdish security forces and Shia and Sunni irregular units.
A successful offensive would defeat Daesh in Iraq but the UN has warned that one million people could be uprooted.
Daesh has reportedly been preparing for the offensive by digging a moat along the city’s perimeter and positioning oil tanks nearby to create a “river of fire” that would impede advancing troops and hinder aerial surveillance.