BAGHDAD — After storming the Iraqi city of Mosul in June, the Islamic State solidified its control. Gunmen enforced its laws, and supportive imams preached at the mosques.
But the jihadists were missing something — doctors. So last month, the Islamic State issued an ultimatum to physicians who had fled: Return to work, or we’ll seize your property and you can never come back.
The Islamic State’s efforts to run Mosul’s health-care system provide a glimpse into its efforts to build a caliphate in Iraq and Syria. Despite victories on the battlefield, the jihadists have struggled as administrators in Mosul, with the city’s hospitals grappling with power outages and shortages of medicine.
Already, the Islamic State has been forced to give ground on some of its stringent policies, such as barring male and female doctors from working together.
But the group continues to impose a harsh version of Islamic rule, according to medical personnel at four of the city’s seven hospitals, who spoke via telephone on the condition of anonymity because of security concerns.
Female staff members, including doctors, are not allowed to work night shifts at the hospitals, they said. Female doctors must wear full-face veils.
Little dissent is tolerated. One doctor in Mosul said that earlier this month, he witnessed a patient arguing with a physician affiliated with the Islamic State. The next day, militants brought the patient to the hospital lobby, where they whipped him and forced him to apologize to the physician.
“Of course, those of us who didn’t join them, we are all living in fear,” the doctor said.
