Peshmerga at the Mosul Dam

D. Morrow

22 September 2014

Mosul Dam

The peshmerga based at the Mosul dam are in good spirits almost two weeks after they recaptured it, despite the fact that signs of the IS occupation are strewn everywhere in the garbage they left behind, and the occasional sniper still hides in the hills watching them. 

Stationed in what were once civilian homes around the dam, the soldiers here are responsible for the 300 engineers who maintain the dam on a daily basis. This used to be Iraqi territory. For a month, it was in the hands of Da’esh. Now, it is Kurdistan. 

From the last outpost on top of a hill behind the dam, you can look back across at the massive turquoise reservoir held in by the dam, and look forward into what is currently Da’esh territory – their positions are about 10-12 km from here. Lieutenant Colonel Jemil Mohammad told us of the two-day battle to recapture the dam, in which the peshmerga were targeted by snipers, fought hand-to-hand in the houses that look out over the lake, and were backed up by American airstrikes. Signs of the fight are ubiquitous – from broken windows in the guardhouses and bombed out vehicles, to the gaping hole torn through the bridge over the dam, to the hundreds and hundreds of bullet casings left behind from AK-type weapons. 

We are invited to have lunch with the peshmerga guarding this place, and one shows a photo of a huge fish caught in the reservoir the day before. The men here are calm, ready, and confident that Da’esh won’t be returning. In fact, they are sure that retaking the city of Mosul, 40 or 50 km south down the Tigris River, is inevitable. Though they appreciate the American air support, they don’t believe foreign fighters will be required to fight Da’esh – just foreign weapons. The first supplies of these from the international community were arriving in Erbil the day we visited the dam on September 19. Though it’s reported Da’esh only used small arms and light weapons in the battle when they lost the dam, Lt. Col. Jemil acknowledges, “They are brave men, with good training… they are armed and very rich.” 

The dam itself is of no use to Kurdistan – the power it generates and water it releases are distributed south to Baghdad. But that doesn’t appear to matter to the peshmerga stationed here, when we ask what will happen to this place after the war. We had driven across the old Kurdish/Iraq border maybe an hour earlier, across a dry yellow wasteland of abandoned villages, burned homes, and scorched earth, but nowhere is there a sign of the Iraqi army. “Who do you see here?” Lt. Col. Jemil asks us. “We lost many people. We fought for here. We will have it.”