MOSUL, Iraq (AP) – Receipts from taxi rides, ledgers listing internet usage for the privileged few and random logbooks documenting an ever tighter economy are just some of the documents that Islamic State militants left behind when they fled eastern Mosul in the face of advancing Iraqi forces.
The discarded papers and bundles of receipts, found on a recent visit to a home used as a base for the militants in the city, offer an unusual glimpse into the Islamic State group’s daily life and economy.
In the months leading up to the Mosul offensive, IS fighters were increasingly pushed underground by punishing U.S.-led coalition airstrikes.
The bookkeeping reveals how IS bases had become increasingly like bunkers, but also how easily the fighters were able to move within their so-called caliphate just a year ago, when it spanned across western Iraq and a third of Syria.
Most of the receipts were from early 2016, when IS had only just lost control of the city of Ramadi in western Anbar province, but still controlled about a quarter of Iraq’s territory. Slips of paper document taxi rides back and forth to IS-held towns across the Iraq-Syria border.