美国国家公共电台 NPR When Mosul's Cops Return, Will They Seek Reconciliation Or Revenge?（在线收听）

When Mosul's Cops Return, Will They Seek Reconciliation Or Revenge? 

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And we turn now to Iraq, where government forces are battling their way through rural areas to try to reach the city of Mosul, which is held by the Islamic State. An array of Iraq's security forces are involved. The fight is perhaps most personal for members of the Mosul police force who are anxious to get back to their city. NPR's Alice Fordham went to meet them.

ALICE FORDHAM, BYLINE: Mosul's police have been exiled from the city and villages around it since ISIS took over in 2014. To find them now, you drive to a gray dot of a village in an endless desert. It was retaken from ISIS a few months ago, and hundreds of cops are now using it as a base.

(SOUNDBITE OF HELICOPTER)

FORDHAM: Helicopters buzz back and forth from the frontlines, and every breath is bitter with smoke from oil wells set alight by ISIS.

As-salaam alaikum.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Wa-laikum as-salaam.

FORDHAM: Hi.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: How are you?

FORDHAM: Inside, the mood is upbeat. The police are helping the army with logistics. Presiding over a bank of radios and several battlefield maps is General Abdulkareem al-Jubouri

ABDULKAREEM AL-JUBOURI: (Through interpreter) Yesterday, they liberated my village.

FORDHAM: These police were serving in Mosul city, and he's from a tiny hamlet nearby where his mother and sister still live. ISIS held it for more than two years.

JUBOURI: (Through interpreter) I feel great happiness today, first because we liberated our areas and our people from ISIS. Everyone is happy, not just me - the officers, the recruits. Everyone is happy. Today I went to my parents - such great happiness.

FORDHAM: He went with the army and several of his men on a mission to figure out how to hold the village. But he did have time to hug his mother.

JUBOURI: (Through interpreter) She was crying.

FORDHAM: General Jubouri talks a big game. He says, as locals, the police should be forced to secure Mosul once ISIS is forced out. But they've got a bad reputation. Before ISIS took Mosul, people in the city complained the police were infiltrated by al-Qaida. I asked the police chief, General Wathiq al-Hamdani, about this, and he's pretty blunt.

WATHIQ AL-HAMDANI: (Through interpreter) Yeah, I will talk very clear. Yeah, some of them, they have a relation with the terrorist. And some of the police who stay in Mosul now, they work with ISIS.

FORDHAM: Besides that, people from Mosul said the police were just incompetent and corrupt. But General Hamdani says the ones that fled Mosul have now had training from Western advisers on things like how to raid a house and deal with suicide bombers. He says they're ready. But there's another problem. For this police force, the battle against ISIS is personal. They lost friends and family. And their desire for revenge could override their training.

Outside, I meet a young corporal, Muhannad Ahmed.

MUHANNAD AHMED: (Speaking Arabic).

FORDHAM: He, too, is from the village now retaken from ISIS. And he says his relatives there are like people who died and were given life again. And then, he talks about what he'll do to ISIS.

AHMED: (Speaking Arabic).

FORDHAM: "I'm going to go and slaughter them all," he says. "I won't leave anyone in their family. I will erase from the face of the earth the brother or father of anyone who is with ISIS."

In training, he was taught to hand over suspected ISIS fighters to be dealt with by the courts. But, as the setting sun shines golden on his youthful face, he just says, we feel we have to kill him.

Alice Fordham, NPR News, Mahana village, Iraq.