The extremist group controlling Mosul in northern Iraq has decided to shut down most mobile telecommunications inside the city. Rumours are flying as to why. Have they done it because they can no longer profit from the phone companies in Mosul? Or is it because of an impending battle and they don’t want their positions revealed? In a short statement broadcast on a local radio station, Al Zuhur, several days ago, a spokesman from the extremist group known as the Islamic State told listeners that work done by telecommunications companies in Mosul, the northern Iraqi city the group currently controls, has been suspended. The statement didn’t give any reason as to why telecommunications companies would no longer be active in Mosul – fighters from the Islamic State, or IS, group had apparently sabotaged some of the cellphone towers. But nobody seems to know why and rumours are flying in the town. Some say it’s because an external attack on the city – to liberate it from the IS group – is imminent and the group want to block communications. Others say it’s because telecommunications companies, which had always been rumoured to pay protection money to extremist groups in Mosul as well as rental to the building owners upon whose property they placed their towers, have stopped paying both fees. A local telecommunications engineer who wanted to be identified only as Jaber says the cellphone towers were sabotaged for financial reasons. It’s become more difficult to get money in and out of the province of Ninawa since the IS group took over and the IS group hasn’t been able to collect money from the telecommunications companies, he alleges. It’s especially difficult to get money out of the comparatively safe region of Iraqi Kurdistan at the moment, after a recent car bomb attack.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 15:59:58 +0000
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