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Video emerges of the Islamic State securing and looting the eastern SAA garrison of Palmyra, adjacent to the grain silos

KUWAIT. Burgan oil fields. 1991. An American Marine walks by an unidentified charred corpse. In the background: a destroyed Iraqi tank.

KUWAIT. Outskirts of Kuwait City. March 1, 1991. A long line of vehicles, including destroyed Iraqi Army Russian-made T-62 tanks and trucks stand abandoned by fleeing Iraqi troops after the Allied troops liberated the capital of Kuwait.

KUWAIT. March 11, 1991. The bodies of dead Iraqi soldiers hang from a truck abandoned by the fleeing Iraqi army by a road leading to Iraq. 

The Gulf War which was marked by the introduction of live news broadcasts from the front lines of the battle, principally by the U.S. network CNN. The war has also earned the nickname Video Game War after the daily broadcast of images from cameras on board U.S. bombers during Operation Desert Storm.

SAUDI ARABIA. Riyadh. January 22, 1991. A U.S. soldier and Saudi police officers examine the wreckage of a missile, believed to be a Soviet-made Scud, which landed in downtown Riyadh when Iraq launched a missile attack on the Saudi capital.

IRAQ. Bashur (Southern Kurdistan). Nineveh governorate. Shingal/Sinjar. March 2015. Funeral of a YBS (Shingal Defense Units) fighter who died repealing an attack from ISIS.

Photographs and account of the attack by Joey L.

The next morning, I witnessed the Islamic State unleash a violent attack which began with a suicide bomber igniting a car packed with explosives (VBIED/Vehicle Born Improvised Explosive Device). Even though the attack was far in the distance, you could feel a slight shock wave pulse through your body and then hear the actual explosion half a second later. My natural instinct was to duck and cover my head from shrapnel. “Shit!” I yelled, but as soon as I looked up, I was met with Jan’s [PKK commander] calm gaze. “It’s okay,” he said. “Let’s just prepare all your stuff in case we have to leave quickly.” Before Jan even finished his sentence, the fighters had already grabbed their Kalishnakov rifles and ran for the trucks parked outside the base. Jan explained that those fighters will go out to support those on the frontline and be prepared to drive any wounded back to the base.

Although a suicide attack may seem like disorganized chaos— there is actually a method to ISIS’s madness. Though their tactics they use can seem bizarre to us, the Islamic State should be considered masterminds on the battlefield. Employing the use of suicide bombers can either be a devastating blow to an enemy’s position— allowing foot soldiers to make a rapid advance— or it could merely be a distraction for a flank attack from another unanticipated position. After a couple hours of fighting, the attack was repelled by a union of guerilla forces and Peshmerga. Although the jihadists gained no ground on this particular occasion, the following day we learned a YBS guerilla fighter had died in the clash. There was a military style funeral for the fallen fighter. As a foreign photographer, I was encouraged to go and witness the burial so the world outside the battle zone could see what was happening in Shingal. ​When I arrived at the funeral, the wind had picked up considerably, whipping sand particles against the exposed faces and necks of the mourners. A grey fog had enshrouded the landscape. If you looked off in the distance, there was no separation between earth and sky. The entire community of about 200 people gathered for the ceremony: singing, crying and taking pictures on their cell phones. Suddenly, the people parted and the casket arrived, hoisted on the shoulders of the martyr’s fellow soldiers. Bullets were fired into the bleak heavens. The family led the procession, wailing and chanting, “Martyrs never die!”

SYRIA. Palmyra. Released on March 24, 2016. A Syrian government soldier takes a position inside a damaged palace.