by Scott Anderson | Aug 24, 2016 | Features
Washington- At the sight of the Arab village on the road just ahead, Azar Mirkhan brought the car to a quick stop and swore under his breath in Kurdish. It was a poor and tattered place: off to the left, a compact cluster of earthen homes and walls and, to the right,...
by Scott Anderson | Aug 23, 2016 | Features
At the beginning of June 2015, his one-year tour of duty with ISIS drawing to a close, Wakaz reappraised his life. Since completing his training at the ISIS compound near Mosul the previous summer, he had spent some six months back in his hometown, Dawr — his main...
by Scott Anderson | Aug 22, 2016 | Features
Washington-Driving through the desert, Azar Mirkhan told me about the death of his father, Gen. Heso Mirkhan, the peshmerga warrior who helped lead the 1974 Kurdish uprising against the Iraqi government, and who then took his family into exile in Iran. When the...
by Scott Anderson | Aug 20, 2016 | Features
Washington-Since her return from San Francisco in 2009, Khulood had been marooned in Jordan. By 2014, she was living in a small apartment in a working-class neighborhood of eastern Amman with her father and two sisters, Teamim and Sahar. It was a dreary place, a...
by Scott Anderson | Aug 19, 2016 | Features
Washington- Majd spent three months in Damascus as street battles raged throughout his hometown, and even though the atmosphere in the capital was tranquil — disconcertingly so — he was eager to get back to his family and his studies. Finally in May 2012, the...
