Rebuilding after ousting the Islamic State militants is key to the country’s future and safety, said Matthew Schweitzer, a researcher at the Education for Peace in Iraq Center in Washington.

“Their war against the militants has wrought intense damage in cities across the country, and that liberation without reconstruction creates conditions for renewed instability,” Schweitzer said in a recent report.

The government must also do more than it did before the Islamic State took large swathes of the country in 2014. Baghdad had ignored Jalawla for years before then, residents say. Iraqi officials also mishandled reconstruction after the 2003 U.S. invasion.

“The central government has not provided anything worth noting,” said Yacob Yousif Ali, 42, a member of the Khanaqin District Council that oversees Jalawla.