Mosul Eye: A Scholar's Clandestine War Against ISIS

By Omar Mohammed

Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, History

When ISIS overran Mosul in June 2014, the young historian Omar Mohammed expected a quiet life of archives and teaching. Instead, from a hidden room and under a name no one knew, he created Mosul Eye, an anonymous blog recording the occupation from inside the city. He recorded checkpoints, executions and the demolition of heritage sites while ISIS hunted him. Mohammed recounts how he survived, preserved his archive and learned that governments and intelligence agencies, including the CIA, had relied on his reports.

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• Hillary Clinton: “I was delighted to meet Dr. Omar Mohammad, a historian and writer whose work I have long admired, in person today. ... His new book documents the work of bearing witness—sometimes while risking everything. I hope it inspires a new generation to defend freedom and transparency as he did and does.”