Rukmini Callimachi, a New York Times and AP international correspondent, is on the streets of the city of Mosul in Iraq, which has been partially retaken from ISIS. The fight for Mosul has raged since November, involving well over 100,000 soldiers. ISIS and supporters took the city in 2014, after American troops followed Bush-era orders and largely departed the nation under President Obama in 2011. In a series of tweets today, she reported what she was seeing and hearing on the ground.
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1 For the last 2 days, I've been reporting from eastern Mosul, now under Iraqi control. It's amazing to finally be able to walk freely here pic.twitter.com/4J2xoXmwzY
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) February 8, 2017
2. The front line is now demarcated by the Tigris River. We are waiting for the Iraqi army to make their push into Western Mosul: pic.twitter.com/kUTSf15WVQ
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) February 8, 2017
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Iraqi coalition forces have won East Mosul and forced ISIS forces to the other side of the Tigris river. Having been on the ground for the beginning of the battle, Callimachi notes one very important difference between 2016 and 2017: Iraqis and ISIS are talking about Donald Trump’s Muslim ban. And one of the two groups is “openly celebrating” it, calling it the “Blessed Ban.”
3. I reported here in Nov/Dec of last year. Guess what's different on this trip? Everywhere I go, Iraqis want to ask about the visa ban
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) February 8, 2017
4. I've been asked about it by officers of the elite CTS division who speak fluent English and who work with US special forces.
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) February 8, 2017
5. On the banks of the Tigris, I was quizzed on the ban by Mohammed, with Iraq's Federal Police, himself a former interpreter for US forces
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) February 8, 2017
6. But here's the best part. Guess who else is talking about it? ISIS is, according to a resident of W. Mosul my translator reached by cell
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) February 8, 2017
7. My translator reached the resident at 2 am. ISIS is forbidding people under their rule to have phones. Resident hid his. Calls at night
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) February 8, 2017
8. The resident said ISIS has been openly celebrating the ban. They've even coined a phrase for it: الحظر المبارك
Or "The Blessed Ban"
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) February 8, 2017
9. Why are they calling it a "Blessed Ban?" Because ISIS sees this as *their* doing. They succeeded in scaring the daylight out of America
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) February 8, 2017
10. ISIS, according to this resident of Western Mosul, thinks their terror tactic worked. They frightened the most powerful man in the world
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) February 8, 2017
11. And they are celebrating, he says, because it proves to their followers that America really does "hate" Islam.
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) February 8, 2017
The account would seem to confirm that ISIS is attempting to use Trump’s Muslim ban as propaganda to polarize Muslims. By painting the United States as uniformly anti-Muslim, ISIS can more easily pitch and maintain their simplistic and violent narrative, which pits Muslims against the West.