This fall, I spent six weeks with the writer Luke Mogelson, following an élite Iraqi police unit called the Mosul swat team as its members fought to take back their city from the forces of the Islamic State. The story, which Luke wrote and I photographed, was called “The Avengers of Mosul”—the men were seeking vengeance not just for the threat to their country as a whole but also for the murders of family members by ISIS. Nearly every fighter had suffered this kind of loss, and many of them had family still living in peril in Mosul. The men welcomed us on their campaign, and shared with us their provisions, their blankets and mats, their seats in the trucks, and their stories.
The fight to liberate Mosul from isis is the biggest military operation in the country since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, in 2003. I wanted the photographs I made to take readers to the front of this war, and to introduce them in an intimate way to the people fighting it, to let them know the members of Mosul swat as individuals. When times were quiet or when they were kinetic, I tried to photograph the men as characters, not just subjects. If I did a good enough job, I hoped I would make their story our story.
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