"Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (ISIS) elements have been openly imposing tributes on merchants and farmers in isolated areas of Ninawa, Salaheddine and Kirkuk provinces, Iraqi tribal leaders and politicians told Diyaruna.
Although it is on a limited scale, this has sparked renewed fears among residents of these areas that the group is attempting to reassert its presence via extortion, attacks, abductions and by torching agricultural crops.
In a recent report, displaced residents in Kirkuk province told Al-Arabiya they were afraid to return to their homes in al-Hawijah district, Makhmour and some remote villages on the border with Syria.
They said this was because ISIS is imposing tributes on residents in those areas, collecting what it refers to as zakat from farmers after the harvest season and the sale of crops, the news outlet reported.
In the neighbouring province of Salaheddine, provincial council security committee member Khazaal Hammad told Diyaruna that ISIS elements are present in the province and have been known to harass residents.
He accused ISIS elements of burning farmers' crops in Salaheddine villages, and urged Iraqi forces to "intensify their intelligence and security efforts and pursue the terrorist group’s sleeper cells wherever they are".
Joint Iraqi forces on July 7th embarked on a massive military campaign, dubbed "Will of Victory", to drive ISIS remnants out of the desert that stretches across Anbar, Salaheddine and Ninawa provinces and up to the Iraq-Syria border.
Harassment of farmers
ISIS is "once again imposing tributes, and doing so openly, on farmers and merchants in areas of western Ninawa", the province's tribal spokesman Sheikh Muzahim al-Huweit told Diyaruna.
The group had previously imposed tributes on wheat farmers in villages near the cities of Tal Afar, Sinjar, al-Baaj, Badoush, Hatra, Rabiea and Zummar as well as the al-Jazira region, he said.
Describing the group's modus operandi, he said ISIS elements "observe farmers as they sell their wheat and record their names and the quantities they sell".
They then make phone calls to the farms or show up in person to demand a share of the proceeds, he said, threatening the farmers with death or abduction if they do not pay up.
ISIS is no longer conducting these activities covertly or through intermediaries but is doing so openly, al-Huweit added, "but no one dares report them in these areas" for fear of retribution.
Now the group has even begun to try to impose tributes on merchants and shop owners, some of whom say they have received death threats form ISIS fighters.
Calls for resolute action
The Ninawa Operations Command, led by Maj. Gen. Numan al-Zawbaie, "is working diligently to put an end to this", al-Huweit said, though these efforts have not yet fully succeeded in eradicating the ISIS threats.
He warned that the imposition of tributes means "the return of funding sources for the terrorist group, which will in turn enable it to recruit fighters and carry out new terrorist attacks".
ISIS elements are kidnapping and killing people, burning crops and threatening farmers to force them to pay tributes, Ninawa provincial council member Dhahwi al-Shammari told Diyaruna.
He called on government agencies to take resolute action to deter these threats, attacks and criminal actions.