Regrouping with the ERD for a third and final time on Dec. 10, Arkady found himself in new terrain in the freshly liberated district of Gogjali on the western outskirts of Mosul.

This time there were almost no limits to what he could film — and what he didn’t see, the soldiers proudly shared, including self-incriminating clips that documented crimes up to and including the execution of detainees.

As he gathered both his own images and those the soldiers shared with him via WhatsApp, Arkady sensed danger.

To this day, Arkady still struggles with why the ERD crossed red lines so readily — and why they so casually let him in on their deeds. Was it sheer narcissism? A sense of impunity? Altered states? All of the above?

Most of the soldiers he encountered behaved with conspicuous entitlement, he says, rationalizing their actions as justified by the end goal of crushing Daesh. A majority, he says, also indulged in drink and drugs, including an unidentified pill that appeared to amp the men up for any given task.

The pills were marked ‘Zero One’ — I don’t know what they were.”

Ali Arkady

“The pills were marked ‘Zero One’ — I don’t know what they were. They offered me one, I said no. They bought them on the black market. It seemed to give them courage. A few of them took too much and they just babbled, you couldn’t understand them always.”

One of the soldiers, Arkady remembers, always kept to the periphery, avoiding any involvement in prisoner abuse. Once, during the photographer’s final embed, that soldier took Arkady aside and said, in a conspiratorial whisper, “You are like me — you don’t like this, do you?” Fearing it was a trap, Arkady maintained a poker face, saying nothing in response. But looking back, he says, “He was a good guy. He was the one good guy.”

It was in the final days of the last embed that the worst unfolded. One especially damning incident involved the torture and killing of two brothers — Laith and Ahmad al-Hayali — after their Dec. 16 arrest.

Arkady photographed the first 90 minutes of abuse before he fled the room, fearing an ERD officer would force him to delete the incriminating images. The abuse continued for another day and night and then, some 30 hours later, one of the two soldiers responsible gleefully showed — and then gave to Arkady — a 12-second clip showing the brothers’ lifeless bodies. Other photos followed, including “trophy” images that reveal the abuse of the two brothers, as photographed by their abusers.

TROPHY PHOTOS: Photos taken by the Iraqi military perpetrators and later shared with photographer Ali Arkady show the torment of brothers Laith and Ahmad al-Hayali on the morning of their deaths. The stylized calligraphy tattooed on interrogator Aba al-Fathil’s arm offers clues to sectarian motives — it says “Ya Ali” and includes a representation of a split-blade sword known as a Zulfikar, two important Shia Muslim symbols.

Two days later, Capt. Nazar and Corp. Ali — the “heroes” of his film from Fallujah — proudly showed Arkady a video clip on their phones. In it, Nazar and Ali shoot a barefoot suspect twice in the back as he attempts to flee. After a third shot, the man drops to the ground, immobile. Nazar and Ali step forward and unload another six shots between them.

Nazar and Ali later shared the video with Arkady via WhatsApp.

“They were proud of it. I felt sick. I felt scared. It was crazy,” he said.

The next night, as the soldiers slept, Arkady crept upstairs and called VII Photo on Skype seeking guidance. He knew he had a strong story to tell. He feared the soldiers would turn on him. The photographers advised him to get out. Arkady told the soldiers his daughter was ill, and he fled. Barely a week later, he had made his way to Doha, then onward to Europe. His wife and daughter soon followed. Arrangements were also made for Arkady’s parents, though he wants the details to remain secret.

Acclaimed American photojournalist Ed Kashi, who has mentored Arkady since 2014, was among those on the on the call who counselled him to flee.

“He sent me these pictures ... and I literally started to sob. It was such a gut punch,” Kashi told the Star.

“I’ve been working in this region since 1991. It was devastating because it drew into sharp relief that nothing is changing.”