AP PHOTOS: Iraqi special forces share treasured possessions
Sgt. Ahmed Abdelaziz, with Iraq's special forces, has been almost continually deployed fighting the Islamic State group ever since the militants overran nearly a third of Iraq in the summer of 2014. Now he's on the front lines of Fallujah, a city declared "fully liberated" on Sunday by the commander leading the fight against IS. […]Susannah George and Maya Alleruzzo write for AP:
Sgt. Ahmed Abdelaziz, with Iraq's special forces, has been almost continually deployed fighting the Islamic State group ever since the militants overran nearly a third of Iraq in the summer of 2014. Now he's on the front lines of Fallujah, a city declared "fully liberated" on Sunday by the commander leading the fight against IS. Abdelaziz has with him what he always brings into battle: a photo of his brother.
It's not a smiling family portrait. It is a picture on his mobile phone of his brother Saad's body among hundreds killed in a massacre carried out by the jihadis after they captured the military's Camp Speicher base in 2014. At the time, IS fighters killed more than 1,000 captured soldiers at the base, outside the city of Tikrit, north of Baghdad.
At first, Abdelaziz hadn't been sure of his brother's fate, but his worst fears were confirmed when IS released a video of the massacre and he recognized Saad in it. On his phone, he flipped through a series of stills from the video, saying the grisly images are reminders of his purpose in the fight.
