page_title: Mosul
section_title: Armed opposition
hierarchical_section_title: Mosul / History / Government by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) / Armed opposition
caption_attribution_description: English: Iraqi army convoy. Mosul, Northern Iraq, Western Asia. 17 November, 2016.
context_page_description: Mosul is a major city in northern Iraq. Located approximately 400 km north of Baghdad, Mosul stands on the west bank of the Tigris, opposite the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh on the east bank. The metropolitan area has grown to encompass substantial areas on both the "Left Bank" and the "Right Bank", as the two banks are described by the locals compared to the flow direction of Tigris.
  At the start of the 21st century, Mosul and its surroundings had an ethnically and religiously diverse population; the majority of Mosul's population were Arabs, with Assyrians, Armenians, Turkmens, Kurds, Yazidis, Shabakis, Mandaeans, Kawliya, Circassians in addition to other, smaller ethnic minorities. In religious terms, mainstream Sunni Islam was the largest religion, but with a significant number of followers of the Salafi movement and Christianity, as well as Shia Islam, Sufism, Yazidism, Shabakism, Yarsanism and Mandaeism.
  Mosul's population grew rapidly around the turn of the millennium and by 2004, the city's population was estimated to be 1,846,500. In 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant seized control of the city.
context_section_description: The urban guerrilla warfare groups may be called the Nabi Yunus Brigade after the Nabi Yunus mosque, or the Kataeb al-Mosul (Mosul Brigade). The brigade claimed to have killed ISIL members with sniper fire. In the countryside around Mosul, Kurdish and Assyrian militia also took up arms to resist ISIL oppression, and successfully repelled ISIL attacks on Kurdish and Assyrian towns and villages.
caption: Iraqi army convoy in Mosul, 17 November 2016
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