Travel diary from Iraq, the country where ISIS sleeps

ERBIL (Iraq) – Seven days, those of a dense travel diary that began on Friday 26 April to get to know the Italian operation ‘Prima Parthica’ present in Iraq since August 2014 in the international coalition against the Islamic State. The Mosul dam, a stronghold of darkness during the years of the Daesh occupation (2014), has returned to Iraq […]

ERBIL (Iraq) – Seven days, those of a dense travel diary that began on Friday 26 April to get to know up close the Italian operation ‘Prima Parthica’ present in Iraq since August 2014 in the international coalition against the Islamic State . The Mosul dam, a stronghold of darkness during the years of the Daesh occupation (2014), returned to Iraq in 2017. During a two-hour flight, on board the NH90 helicopters of the Griffon Task Force with the soldiers of the Italian Army, you can admire all its majesty. Mosul today is the symbol of a military victory which here, in the land that was once Mesopotamia, has a strange flavor of ancient glories, such as those of the Legio I Parthica created by Septimius Severus in 197 which won the Set off. And the Tigris, of a mellow and nourishing green, like centuries ago, cuts the sands in two.

From above, on board a helicopter that rises shielded by machine guns, you can see the monastery of San Matteo, the concentric circles and spokes, like a bicycle wheel, on which Erbil develops, the citadel with ancient ruins from over 5 thousand years agoand ongoing restorations; and the houses around, immersed in a powdery, golden air. There is a desire for the future, new buildings are being built, from the shopping centers of a thousand bright colors in the center to the small houses full of tents in the suburbs.

In the market of a thousand fabrics, perfumed oils, candied sweets and throughout the city life goes on as always, full of youth, between veiled girls and others showing off their long hair. The people are calm, says those who have been here in uniform for months, despite the international tension of the nearby war in Gaza gripping them in a grip of drones and maximum alert, which only occasionally manages to disturb the normal course of city affairs. Local media reports everything, quickly. The atmosphere appears more suspended than calm, because “ISIS resists” as reiterated by the Kurdish ministers met, Rebar Ahmed of the Interior and that of Defence, Shoresh Ismail Abdulla. The presence of the Italians is therefore strongly desired: “The Italian Army must stay”, everyone says, to train and keep ready the Kurdish soldiers (the peshmerga) who have paid in human lives and thousands of disappeared the war against ISIS. This is what the Italian soldiers are doing in Iraqi Kurdistan and new training activities will begin at a base in a few months, as announced by the commander of the operation Colonel Francesco Serafini who arrived here shortly after the dramatic events of 7 October .

The skies of Iraq have since become the theater of the war in Gaza, which like a “shadow” has reached here, stretching across the entire Middle East, said Interior Minister Rebar Ahmed.
The Camp Singara base never sleeps . The alarm that echoes in the accommodation where the soldiers live punctuates the program of the exercises, the armored vehicles continuously leave to go outside, the helicopters transport personnel and material, including medical supplies, the bunkers are indicated on each map, the gap (bulletproof vest) must always be in tow, the word Emergency shines steadily on a night of heavy rain. The first emergency medical unit (Role 1) is open 24 hours a day. The person in charge, the doctor Lieutenant Colonel Marco Tribuzio, who combined two professions in the academy: camouflage and the white coat, talks about days without timetables, always ready.

Then outside the great security barrier there are the Kurdish people. Some work on the base, they are mediators, cooks, cleaning staff. Many have the grief and open wounds of ISIS on them and at home. As in every operational theater, there is no shortage of international military-civil cooperation (CIMIC) to provide help to the population. So one afternoon the travel diary stops at a school where 25 children, of all ages, orphans of ISIS or left behind by families who are unable to raise them, receive school supplies and clothes. They are excited, some girls are more shy, others wear very elegant dresses and small heels, the boys laugh a lot with some teeth missing and with deep black eyes. Coordinating everything is Captain Teresa d’Amico: a link between the Bextewery association (for this donation), others that bring aid from Italy and the Defense, as she explained after the ceremony delivery, is a guarantee of the entire humanitarian aid operation. “This allows us to have an analysis of the actual needs of the population and guarantees that this material reaches its destination”, explained Mariano Barbi, vice-president of ‘Live to Love’, the Italian association involved in this activity.< /p >

Iraqi Kurdistan, as the Minister of the Interior said to the visiting Italian press, wants peace and does not recognize itself in the politics of the PKK, but the ambivalence of the relationship with Iraq cannot be overlooked: a bond that is more military than political. We feel that Kurdistan wants security.
From tactical exercises, to institutional meetings in brilliantly decorated buildings, where everything is taken care of down to the last detail and there is no lack of fragrant tea served in inlaid glasses, and then again< strong>the hills of sand, the acrid air of the hot storm, the moon looking out over the iron stairs of the military base: Iraqi Kurdistan has these thousand faces. A female soldier says that “time here doesn’t seem to pass. A day lasts a month” and it has nothing to do with the work being done, which is actually a lot, but with that strange calm that you can breathe.
The deadly grip of ISIS still has its dark hand on the people, who are as fierce as they are silent.
The pilot Andrea Piacitelli, commander of the Griffon, leaves diplomas to those who flew over these lands to document what is happening: something more than a memory. While Commander Serafini of Prima Parthica returns home with many memories and the amazement of a “cold winter, the extreme rains that you don’t expect in Iraq”. Those that also bury the beauties of the excavations that Italian archaeologists come here to save. This is still Mesopotamia, the middle ground between two rivers and now between two worlds that speak to each other in the sky with drones, and on the ground with fear, in the space that belongs to no one, neither Iraq nor Kurdistan, in which the dangerous threat of terrorism. The Kurds know it: “ISIS is defeated, but it is not dead“.