After ISIS: Life and Commerce in Mosul

The campaign to retake Mosul from Islamic State has entered its final, and probably most destructive, phase in the narrow streets of the old city, some six months after thousands of Iraqi troops and Kurdish fighters began their offensive. The air power, artillery, and intelligence provided by a U.S.-led coalition helped secure eastern neighborhoods in January. Residents there have returned to their homes, and children are back at school; shopkeepers reopened stores, free to sell whatever they choose with no fear of reprisals from the jihadist group.

Battlefield progress has slowed as fighting moves deeper into Mosul's historic heart in the city's west. Hundreds of thousands of people are trapped, and many others have been killed. After Iraqi officials said as many as 200 may have died in the American-led bombing of a city block this month, there have been calls for a review of strategy. Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, on March 28 urged the military to "ensure that the impact on civilians is reduced to an absolute minimum." Retaking Mosul would mark a major blow against Islamic State, which declared its caliphate spanning northeastern Syria and northwestern Iraq from one of the city's mosques in June 2014.