Photo of Mosul in February 2017 by Arshed Baghdadi
Videographer Alessandro Pavone has been reporting in Iraq for the past three years since the Islamic State group took control of the Northern city of Mosul in the summer of 2014. He recounts some of the key moments on the front lines.
I was on assignment in Afghanistan when Mosul fell to the Islamic State group in the summer of 2014. I had almost no access to Internet during the day and I wasn’t really following the news. Out of the blue, my editor called: “Pack your gear, we need you in Erbil tomorrow.” I had never been to Iraq before, and I had no idea what I was getting into.
My first encounter with the frontline happened near a camp for displaced people in Kalak, right at the checkpoint with the autonomous Kurdish province. After few kilometers is the so-called caliphate — Islamic State territory. Some came on foot, others by car. I remember hundreds of people crossing the desert lands of the Nineveh planes carrying nothing but the clothes they were wearing and the few things they could grab from their homes.
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WNU editor: The culture of revenge is deeply embedded in the Middle East .... and here is an easy prediction .... the war against the Islamic State has created huge numbers of people who will be bent on revenge for a long time.
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