When Sajad Jiyad landed at Baghdad airport in summer 2014, he was one of four people on the plane. Driving through the Iraqi capital, the streets were empty and the inhabitants on edge.
Even during a decade-long insurgency featuring near daily bombings in the capital, things hadn’t seemed this bad. Headlines were proclaiming the end of Iraq. Baghdad appeared to be the besieged capital of a failed state.
After overrunning a third of the country, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant were on the doorstep of the city.
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“In Kadhimiya, [in northwest Baghdad] you could hear mortars being launched just past the Abu Ghraib area towards western Baghdad,” says Mr Jiyad.
The 34-year-old spent much of his…
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