Mosul Eye - by Omar Mohammed (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

When ISIS overran Mosul in June 2014, a young historian expected to spend his life in archives, not hiding from a death sentence. His ambition had been quiet: to write history, teach students, and preserve his city's past. But within days, Mosul was sealed off from the world--its streets patrolled, its memory suffocating under propaganda--and he found himself forced into a role he had never imagined.

From a small room no one ever saw, under a name no one knew, he created Mosul Eye. What began as a personal attempt to record the first days of the occupation became, without his knowing it, the only reliable source from inside the terror state. Every detail he wrote--checkpoints, executions, heritage destruction, forbidden rumors--was a risk. Every sentence could have exposed him. ISIS hunted him relentlessly, promising to kill him in a manner "humanity had not yet discovered."

But he survived. And the archive he built survived with him.

Only years later would he discover that his secret reports, written by generator light to the sound of drones overhead, were being read not only by his neighbors and the world's newspapers--but by governments, analysts, and intelligence agencies, including the CIA, which relied on his work as one of the finest inside sources produced during the occupation.

Mosul Eye: A Scholar's War Against ISIS is the story of how a quiet scholar became the most elusive witness to one of the darkest chapters of the 21st century, and how knowledge, discipline, and truth outlasted a terror state.

About the Author

Today, Omar directs the Antisemitism Research Initiative within the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. He hosts two acclaimed series: Mosul and the Islamic State, and 36 Minutes on Antisemitism. He teaches Middle East History, Cultural Heritage Diplomacy, and Counterterrorism at Sciences Po.

A former senior consultant for UNESCO (2018-2023), Omar has led significant cultural heritage and oral history projects across Iraq and the Middle East, including landmark documentation of Mosul's Jewish community and the post-ISIS memory of the city. He is also the founder of several social and environmental initiatives for Mosul, among them the international campaign to resupply the University of Mosul's Central Library and the Green Mosul reforestation effort.

He was named Iraq's "Researcher of the Year" in 2013, listed among The Algemeiner's "Top 100 People Positively Influencing Jewish Life" in 2020, and nominated by the Austrian Parliament in 2024 for its Civil Service Award in acknowledgment of his contributions to truth, documentation, and civic resilience.

Omar received his PhD in Middle East and Ottoman History from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris and an MA in Middle East History from the University of Mosul. He now lives in exile in Europe.