The Mosul Eye: The Historian Who Spied on ISIS From Inside the Caliphate

Omar, I mean, first of all, I have to tell you, you're an amazing storyteller.

We know that from your book, of course, but I can't imagine how hard it is to relive all these stories.

And I can't believe, by the way, how many roles you had to play in one, right? You were not just documenting evidence and history and publishing and writing, but also therapist and guide and kind of almost like warrior at just...

Your stories are amazing.

Thank you so much for sharing them all with us.

I want to, if it's okay with you, would love to shift a little bit to be now retrospective and then talk about the present.

And so looking back now, given everything you witnessed firsthand, What do you think is the legacy of ISIS's short rule in Iraq and Syria, and what does it say about the threat of Islamist extremism? Have we learned anything?

Yes.

I mean, it's important to know that ISIS lost every battle.

That was very clear.

No matter what anyone would say, every battle they went through, they actually lost it.

In fact, the most dangerous legacy of ISIS is the fact that it showed... that a state can be built in weeks on the ruins of a state that had already failed its people.

And that means the question of governance and the failure of governance could once again recreate the same moment.

that probably another group, whether it's ISIS or another terrorist ideology, could emerge when the governance fails, when a state fails to engage its citizens, when a state fails to have the sensitivity a sensibility to comprehend the diversity of its communities that it's not one community that's not one city that it's not one but also the question of history and and so on on top of all of that is the question of social justice in such a complicated country like iraq i think that is the legacy is also what made it difficult and also why it became very difficult when the battle came to retake Mosul, is that ISIS showed the people, because there is a very important point, and I do hope the Iraqi government will always look back into that.

In Mosul, until today, people talk about one example of why it is possible to fix problems, because they say, and we have a street in the old town of Mosul that since my childhood, that's a street every year, because of the rain, it collapses because the ground is fragile and also when they build it, it's badly built because of the corruption so they don't use the actual materials.

when ISIS took control of the city, they uprooted that street and they completely built a new street.

That the people of Mosul today mentioned, they say that street withstood even all the battle itself and the street is standing still.

Meaning that when a state wants to fix an issue, that's the people thinking, it is possible.

And I think the legacy we take from that is terrorists probably tried to understand that people needed at least for the short period in the beginning, they needed to be showing that it's possible to provide services, etc., and take control of everything.

But ISIS, of course, had a different understanding of that, is that the absolute authoritarianism that they ruled over with the brutality, etc., in exchange they say, look, we are serving the people, but it had to be only done in that brutal way.

I don't think that is something that should be ignored.

I think the legacy should be discussed.

But also don't forget that the city has changed forever for two important reasons as well is the Yazidi genocide changed Mosul forever and in fact the disappearance of the Christian community of Mosul.

I don't think, it is very sad to say that but Christians in Mosul are counted.

You can count them by hand.