The Missing Magritte
The theft of a deeply personal painting by René Magritte from a Belgian museum was a national tragedy. Now, an investigation points to a tragedy greater still.
The theft of a deeply personal painting by René Magritte from a Belgian museum was a national tragedy. Now, an investigation points to a tragedy greater still.
Joshua Hunt Vanity Fair May 2021 20min Permalink
The author and Kamaran Najm co-founded a photo agency in Iraq and teamed up to document a new era in Kurdistan, a region with a long history of suffering. Then Kamaran was captured by ISIS.
Sebastian Meyer Guernica Mar 2020 25min Permalink
The fight to save an innocent refugee from almost certain death.
Ben Taub The New Yorker Jan 2020 30min Permalink
After the horror of ISIS captivity, tens of thousands of Iraqis—many of them children—are caught up in a mental-health crisis unlike any in the world.
Jennifer Percy The New York Times Magazine Nov 2019 25min Permalink
As ISIS retreats, new horrors emerge for a Sunni family.
Anand Gopal The Atlantic Apr 2016 35min Permalink
Was Samantha Sally a prisoner or a conspirator?
Jessica Roy Elle Aug 2019 30min Permalink
Death, ISIS, and tourism in the Atlas Mountains.
Rachel Monroe Outside Jul 2019 15min Permalink
A two-part series on America’s role in the Syrian civil war.
Shane Bauer Mother Jones Jun 2019 2h Permalink
The corruption and cruelty of the state’s response to suspected jihadis and their families seem likely to lead to the resurgence of the terror group.
Ben Taub New Yorker Dec 2018 45min Permalink
Thousands of internal documents help explain how, through brutality and bureaucracy, the Islamic State stayed in power for so long.
Rukmini Callimachi The New York Times Apr 2018 30min Permalink
An on-the-ground investigation reveals that the U.S.-led battle against ISIS — hailed as the most precise air campaign in history — is killing far more Iraqi civilians than the coalition has acknowledged.
Azmat Khan, Anand Gopal New York Times Magazine Nov 2017 45min Permalink
In 2015, two bright Mississippi State college students started dating. Months later, they were planning their life together—alongside ISIS.
Mike Mariani Psychology Today Nov 2017 20min Permalink
The story of Tania Joya, the ex-wife of a jihadist from Texas.
Abigail Pesta Texas Monthly Oct 2017 30min Permalink
Kurdish revolutionaries helped the U.S. expel the Islamic State from its capital city. Will we soon abandon them?
Luke Mogelson New Yorker Oct 2017 35min Permalink
When Isis rounded up Yazidi women and girls in Iraq to use as slaves, the captives drew on their collective memory of past oppressions – and a powerful will to survive.
Cathy Otten The Guardian Jul 2017 20min Permalink
In October, Iraqi forces set out to retake Mosul, one of Iraq’s largest cities and ISIS’s biggest stronghold in the country. It would take them nine months and cost thousands of lives.
James Verini New York Times Magazine Jul 2017 45min Permalink
What should be done with the bodies of ISIS fighters? While investigating in Mosul, the author uncovers a terrible crime.
Kenneth R. Rosen The Atavist Jun 2017 30min Permalink
The elite Iraqi “Golden Division” was trained by the US to hunt terrorists. But now they’re locked in a brutal street battle for control of Mosul.
Mike Giglio Buzzfeed Jun 2017 35min Permalink
“Brace Belden can’t remember exactly when he decided to give up his life as a punk-rocker turned florist turned boxing-gym manager in San Francisco, buy a plane ticket to Iraq, sneak across the border into Syria, and take up arms against the Islamic State. But as with many major life decisions, Belden, who is 27 — “a true idiot’s age,” in his estimation — says it happened gradually and then all at once.”
Reeves Wiedeman New York Apr 2017 25min Permalink
"Some in Nice knew the man as one of the many playboy predators the city seems to beget—black hair slicked back off a shining brow, dress shoes tapering to varnished points, a dark shirt unbuttoned low to reveal the pectorals into which he had obsessively, unblushingly, invested himself. He was 31 but preferred older women, both for their erotic openness and, it seems clear, for their money. Those who knew him best knew him to be a cold and brutal man, detached, amused by little save rough sex and gore."
Scott Sayare GQ Jan 2017 20min Permalink
Abdullahi Yusuf was 18 and ready to dedicate his life to ISIS when federal agents pulled him aside in the Minneapolis airport. He will never see the inside of a jail cell.
Brendan I. Koerner Wired Jan 2017 20min Permalink
The Mosul Dam is failing. A breach would cause a masssive wave that could kill as many as a million and a half people.
Dexter Filkins New Yorker Dec 2016 25min Permalink
John Georgelas was a military brat and drug enthusiast from Texas. Now he’s a prominent figure within the Islamic State.
Graeme Wood The Atlantic Dec 2016 40min Permalink
With the Kurdish pesh merga on the road to Mosul.
James Verini New York Times Magazine Nov 2016 20min Permalink
Life in Mosul.
James Verini National Geographic Oct 2016 45min Permalink