The small farming community of Jurf Al-Sakhar lies in Iraq’s south, to the East of Fallujah in the Euphrates River Valley. A decade of disenfranchisement targeting the Sunni community meant that when ISIS arrived here in 2014, many of the locals sought their protection. The problem was that Jurf Al-Sakhar lies in strategic territory on a pilgrimage route used by Shia religious pilgrims to travel to Karbala, a city with ...
![An Iraqi man walks past the site of a car bomb in central Baghdad, on January 15, 2014. [AFP]](/sites/default/files/styles/d08_traditional/public/im/misc/000_Nic6285408.jpg?itok=UPUO_MUb "An Iraqi man walks past the site of a car bomb in central Baghdad, on January 15, 2014. [AFP]")
![Clashes between moderate Syrian rebel groups and the al-Qaeda-linked ISIL shifts to a new province on the border with Turkey. [Al-Arabiya]](/sites/default/files/styles/d08_traditional/public/im/misc/fd6bc1a4-c22f-4149-8dc4-29dc80e91ef9_16x9_788x442.jpg?itok=x4Ay_JYN "Clashes between moderate Syrian rebel groups and the al-Qaeda-linked ISIL shifts to a new province on the border with Turkey. [Al-Arabiya]")
![Armed men roam a street in the western, mainly Sunni Muslim city of Ramadi, the capital of the Anbar province, on January 4, 2014, as parts of Ramadi and the city of Fallujah. [Getty Images]](/sites/default/files/styles/d08_traditional/public/im/misc/460527941.jpg?itok=D-_Cro0A "Armed men roam a street in the western, mainly Sunni Muslim city of Ramadi, the capital of the Anbar province, on January 4, 2014, as parts of Ramadi and the city of Fallujah. [Getty Images]")
