Follow daily reports from The Media Line’s Mideast bureau chief, Mohammad Al-Kassim
[Transcript] One of the things that we’ve noticed here as we are approaching the Iraqi city of Mosul, and after two years of the liberation of Mosul from the Islamic State organization, or as it’s known here in the Middle East by its Arabic acronym, Da’esh, we have seen a lot of Shi’ite flags all over the streets as we are approaching the city, on top of buildings and houses. Black flags, green flags, flags with the pictures of Shi’ite personalities Al Abbas and others. And that shows you that al-Hashd ash-Shaʿabi, the Iraqi Shi’ite paramilitary groups supported by Iran, as you can see here to my right, are still active here despite what has been told to us in the last few months – that they have become part of the Iraqi army. That is still not the case, as they are operating as an independent unit on their own, and they have their own checkpoints leading into the city of Mosul. We are here on the ground in Iraq in the city of Mosul, two years after the liberation of the city from the Islamic State organization. We are going to find out first-hand how far the rebuilding of Mosul has come. We will bring you all that and more from Iraq. This is Mohammad Al-Kassim from Mosul, Iraq, for The Media Line.