Financial Times: Five years after its liberation, Anbar is witnessing a vigorous reconstruction move

[size=52]Financial Times: Five years after its liberation, Anbar is witnessing a vigorous reconstruction movement[/size]

[size=45]Translation/ Hamed Ahmed[/size]
[size=45]Five years after defeating ISIS, the signs of a growing economic activity in the city of Ramadi are clearly visible, and on a street along the river lit by lampposts, new roads and shopping centers are being built there.[/size]
[size=45]After it was known as a haven for armed groups that witnessed battles since the American invasion of Iraq and was considered a stronghold of Al-Qaeda and then ISIS, a temporary calm has returned to Anbar, the largest province in Iraq.[/size]
[size=45]As a result, the buzz of reconstruction projects pervas the governorate's central cities of Ramadi and Fallujah, where bustling markets and places for family fun are, including the Fallujah Land game park.[/size]
[size=45]Bakr Mahmoud, 33, owner of a mobile phone store, said while sticking a screen cover on a customer’s phone inside the shop, “After the security situation improved, the commercial movement started to become more and more active. The best thing was that we forgot about sectarianism.”[/size]
[size=45]Adjacent to the porous Syrian border, and sharing borders with Jordan and Saudi Arabia, Anbar, several miles from Baghdad, was for a long time a dangerous area.[/size]
[size=45]Al-Anbar, the largest province in Iraq in terms of area, and inhabited by tribal tribes with a majority Sunni population, was in the past the scene of the fiercest battles in Iraq. The sons of the tribal awakening in 2006 and the right to defeat them. But in 2014, Anbar fell to the terrorist organization ISIS. According to the Iraq Body Count, the British observatory, which is concerned with documenting human war losses, during the period between 2003 and 2017, nearly 20,400 people were killed in Anbar, out of a total of 200,000 deaths throughout the country.[/size]
[size=45]Five years after the Iraqi forces expelled ISIS militants from the cities, the military commander, Nasser Ghanem, says that ISIS militants are in their weakest stage now. "I proudly tell you that over the past two years, there has not been any major terrorist attack in Anbar," Ghanem said from inside a military base in Iraq's western desert. ISIS is at its weakest stage now, and the number of ISIS remnants does not exceed 75 militants in all of the Anbar desert.”[/size]
[size=45]Finally, the improvement in the security situation allowed the people of Anbar to rebuild their lives and homes. The Iraqi government and international agencies have allocated a lot of money to build better roads and build new bridges. More than 1.5 million people displaced by the fighting have returned to their areas. The Anbar Investments Authority has issued hundreds of investment licenses.[/size]
[size=45]"Life is better now than it was before ISIS," said a resident of Karma who works in the field of mechanics. There is no comparison in my opinion, the security situation and working conditions are better now than they were before.”[/size]
[size=45]However, not everyone has benefited from this development, and there are many who are still paying the price for the battles and turmoil that took place after ISIS was expelled from the region in 2016 during a military operation. Shiite armed factions from the Hashd formations that participated in the fight against ISIS still control parts of Anbar Province.[/size]
[size=45]In one of the dusty streets of Saqlawiya, there are still some houses in the rubble. Saadia Hamid, 59, lives with 14 of her grandchildren and four daughters-in-law. She lost all her nine children during the military operations against ISIS in 2016, when their locality in Saqlawiya was raided by a group of armed men wearing military uniforms.[/size]
[size=45]Hamid said, “The government did nothing in this area and did not provide any services. I am still under the weight of debts that I borrowed to repair my house, which was burned during the displacement. The government only reformed the main street, but neglected the internal streets.”[/size]
[size=45]The military commander, Ghanem, is concerned that extremist ideology still exists, and affirmed, "While the Anbaris have distanced themselves from this thing, I think that the people who still carry these ideas will not stop."[/size]
[size=45]Yet years of a supposed resurgence of extremist threats have not deterred Mohammed Salman from serving the customers of his brother's crowded perfume and cosmetics store in Ramadi. After two decades in Sweden, he returned this year so optimistic about Anbar that his Jordanian wife and four children intend to leave Europe to join him.[/size]
[size=45]"I think Anbar will be better in the future," Salman said. I don't want to get into politics, but I'm convinced of the people who are leading Anbar now. As for the security aspect, it is very good here.”[/size]
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