Peregraf - Surkew Mohammed
Bakir and the residents of his village have been armed for nine months to protect their village. The threat of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, is still very real in their vicinity.
Bakir lives in Dara village, one of the four villages that form Haftaghar area. It's a Kurdish-populated area in Daquq district, south of Kirkuk. They use their weapons and take turns to guard their homes, following repeated ISIS threats which resulted in the murder and abduction of several residents.
ISIS is not only present in their area, but also controls some footholds, according to the 37-year-old Bakir Zandi, "They do not attack; otherwise they can take other areas as well," he tells Peregraf.
Dara, Mansour, Ali and Fariq are four villages in Haftaghar, next to each other. The security situation is unstable here since the federal raid of October 2017, which the federal forces and some militias took back from the Kurdish Peshmerga.
People consider these areas as "forbidden" due to the ISIS threat.
Amin, 26, has 15 donums of land, half of it is forbidden. In Iraq, a donum is standardised as 2,500 square metres. He cannot use them. "Many people like me cannot enter their lands due to the threat of ISIS," he told Peregraf.
Like many others, he is armed and guards his village against a possible attack by ISIS. If it were not for them, he said, he would be planting wheat in his land.
Amin asks for a strong force to protect them, "The [ISIS] militants come by motorcycles, and we shoot at them. They return once we do." He added, "It's not possible for us to stand guard forever."
The police is present in the area but have not been able to control everywhere or remove the threat of ISIS.
Ali Muhammad, 22, is a resident of Mansour village, also armed, "We have a better role than the federal police. They do not help us enough."
People in these villages live on livestock, Ali said, "ISIS threat is remaining, and the government cannot control our area. We also cannot control all of it. He suggests, "The return of Peshmerga is the best solution. When Peshmerga was here, ISIS could not enter the river [beyond the villages], now they even enter the villages."
Since October 2017, ISIS has frequently raided these villages, killing one and abducting six. While four of the abductees have been freed, two of them are still in captivity by ISIS.
The last ISIS activity in this area was planting a bomb, which went off on the 10th of January and killed a shepherd. Bakir says there has not been a single confrontation between the police and ISIS, "ISIS only targets residents, not the police."
The youth has set up some military posts outside the village and several federal police posts have come afterwards, but they are too far from each other. Each police post is four kilometres apart, and people say ISIS militants easily penetrate through these gaps.
Bakir said, "[ISIS] can easily move between the posts," he added, "Last Friday, a [ISIS] car approached the village, one kilometre away from the police post."
The area is full of lush vegetation and trees, which makes it a natural hideout for ISIS. The villages of Haftaghar have more than 1,200 houses, with 9,000 residents. A local council head, Muhammad Ibrahim, said many residents have left owing to security concerns.
Rokhana river extends to Tikrit, Ibrahim said, "The river has not been cleared and has become a hideout for ISIS militants."
Since they have set up their own posts, they have no problem, Ibrahim said, except one planted bomb which killed a shepherd on the 10th of January.
Daquq on map
It's not only Haftaghar, but ISIS also kills and abducts from most of the villages located alongside Rokhana river. The ransom taken to free hostages has become their source of income.
The conditions of the area are far from what Iraqi officials claim on TV. While they announced victory on ISIS a year ago, people residing in these areas still suffer from ISIS and call for a parliament session in this regard.
Dilan Ghafoor is from Haftaghar and a member of the Iraqi parliament. She met with the people last week and talked to the federal police of the area. she is deeply involved with the preparation of a report which will be passed to the security committee in parliament. She spoke to Peregraf, "There is a security vacuum, and the number of federal police is too little." She added, "They do not stay in the posts Peshmerga used to occupy, as they are considered forbidden areas now that these are under the control of ISIS."
She claims that Peshmerga could control the area with two brigades, while the number of the police is far less.
In her visit, Ghafoor saw that most villages alongside Rokhana river are about to be vacant due to the threat, including Zanqar and Topzawa.
She also received a letter from the residents of Parapara, Tibasawz and Albu Sabah, which are under Tuz Khurmatu but located alongside Rokhana river. They ask for urgent help due to ISIS movement near them.
A parliamentarian visits Haftaghar area. Photo: The parliamentarian's page on Facebook
The most massive ISIS raid was on 25 June 2018, where tens of militants raided Ali village. Beside murdering and wounding the residents, they also presented a military parade.
A resident said to have seen 30-40 ISIS militants, all with covered faces. Only one of them was uncovered, with a red beard. They killed a shop owner in the village and wounded two more. No one knew the reason, "They stayed for fifteen minutes and left."
They introduced themselves as "soldiers of the Islamic State", carrying M4 weapons. They were asking the youngsters about their jobs, to find out whether they work for the security forces or not.
Residents of the area plead for joint forces to protect them and make an appeal to the federal and Kurdish security forces.