Last April, I joined the Iraqi special forces’ “golden division” as they fought Islamic State in west Mosul. The old city is home to deeply embedded Isis fighters who hold an estimated 200,000 civilians hostage with car bombs and gunfights. It is an impossible situation for the US-led coalition, one that offers little hope for the people of Mosul. These drawings, I believe, are the first of this conflict and address some of the more common scenes while the war continues: from the liberated areas to the frontline, the destroyed streets, the camps for internally displaced people and the Isis screening centres.

Abdul Khaliq and his daughter.

An English teacher from Zumar, 20km west of Mosul, Abdul Khaliq fled his home after Isis killed his father in front of him in 2015. He lives in the Hamam al-Alil camp with his wife and daughter.



Mustafa al-Taee

“Just ask for Mustafa al-Taee,” is the advice from a local shopkeeper. Which we do, and are directed straight to his house in Hamam al-Alil. Mustafa is a locally well-known artist who throughout the Isis occupation of Hamam al-Alil drew the atrocities he witnessed. He describes how he finds drawing a therapy, and how he can’t stop doing it. Piled in the corner are dozens of these drawings: people with their heads cut off, soldiers hung upside down on barbed wire.

When Isis discovered Mustafa was drawing, an activity that is haram (forbidden), he was beaten. Now he exhibits his work in the town; a reminder of the horrific occupation.

Clearing rubble from home in Hayy al-Thawra.

In March, four Isis fighters fled under fire from the Iraqi security forces and took shelter in Tali Adbul Hamid’s family home. A US airstrike was called in, and the four missiles killed everybody in the house, including the fighters, Hamid’s mother, two of his brothers and his sister-in-law.

Today, a month later, he is clearing the rubble away from his home to see if there is anything left. This is, sadly, an all-too-common sight in Mosul.

Male refugee screening tent

Ten kilometres south of west Mosul on the Baghdad road is a collection point for refugees. Some 4,000 men a day are dropped off here in open-topped trucks. Their names are put through a system to check if they belong to Isis or not. Of course, this system isn’t foolproof; it has been compiled during a confused war. Informants and local police have their own agendas, and many people will be wrongly accused. Equally, many slip through the net. ‘Alligator’, a young special-forces soldier who refuses to give his real name, tells me that between 30-40 supposed Isis members are caught here each day. And, by the sound of the beatings going on round the corner, and the young men being loaded into a truck, T-shirts over their heads, that is easy to believe.

General Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi

Special forces under General Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi fight from a rooftop on the frontline in west Mosul. Their job is to locate Isis positions and then call in the US airstrikes, which have had such a huge – but controversial – impact on the outcome of the conflict in Mosul.

Suleman Awad Merieh

Born in 1942, Merieh recently suffered a heart attack in his new home, an unofficial camp in Halil al-Alil. He is 80km from his home in Zumar, from where he and his family fled. He has not eaten or drunk for five days and he will most likely die here. His wife, Imsira Ofan Jumae, explains their desperate situation: ‘Tell the world we want to go back … we don’t have a good life here.’