They Will Have to Die Now
The battle is for a city. The war is for history.
In autumn 2016, Iraqi forces began operations to recapture Mosul from the Islamic State. Millennia-old, Mosul was a birthplace of Western culture but also infamous for its cruelty, from the Assyrians to Saddam Hussein. Through the eyes of soldiers and families and jihadis, award-winning reporter James Verini chronicles the combat that followed.
Among the most devastating urban conflicts since World War II, the battle for Mosul was both archaic and modern. Troops and jihadis fought house by house, block by block, matching bullet for bullet, while co-ordinating their movements on WhatsApp and uploading execution videos. Verini describes how this viciously contested patch of earth came to represent a war for the soul of a country, for its history and its future.
James Verini is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine and National Geographic. He has also written for The New Yorker, the Atavist, and other publications, and has won a National Magazine Award and a George Polk Award.