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The road to Mosul

There are only about 80 kilometres (50 miles) between Arbil, the developing capital of the Iraqi Kurdish region, and Mosul, the last remaining Iraqi city held by the Islamic State group. But as I learned during two weeks covering the Mosul offensive, sometimes it only takes a few dozen kilometers to go from one universe […]

Maya Gebeily writes for AFP:

There are only about 80 kilometres (50 miles) between Arbil, the developing capital of the Iraqi Kurdish region, and Mosul, the last remaining Iraqi city held by the Islamic State group. But as I learned during two weeks covering the Mosul offensive, sometimes it only takes a few dozen kilometers to go from one universe to another, passing surreal worlds along the way.

AFP photographers, video-journalists, drivers and I crossed those 80 kilometres almost every day, navigating poorly-paved roads, checkpoints, and towns scarred by both the jihadists’ two-year reign and the brutal battles it took to reach their last bastion in Mosul.

Our coverage was from that front line inside the city. But the journey itself -- the descent from bustling Arbil into war-battered Mosul -- was a story in its own right.