Contemporary · Middle East · War

2014

ISIS takes Mosul

June 10, 2014

A few thousand Islamic State fighters routed several Iraqi divisions from Iraq's second-largest city in three days of astonishing military collapse. Mosul's Sunni residents initially welcomed them as liberators from Shia domination. Days later, on a mosque pulpit, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate from Aleppo to Diyala, and the world rediscovered a horror it thought was finished.