Book Launch: Mosul Eye

On October 15, 2026, the Program on Extremism (PoE) at the George Washington University hosted an in-person book talk and signing on Mosul Eye: A Scholar’s Clandestine War Against ISIS, by Omar Mohammed. Dr. Mohammed is a historian from Mosul, Iraq and is the head of the Antisemitism Research Initiative at PoE. He discussed his book with General David Petraeus, retired U.S. Army four-star general and former Director of the CIA.

Mosul Eye is the story of how Dr. Mohammed secretly documented life, executions, checkpoints, and cultural destruction inside Mosul while the city was occupied by ISIS. Operating under the pseudonym Mosul Eye, Dr. Mohammed became one of the very few reliable sources of information coming out of the occupied city for journalists, neighbors, and international intelligence agencies (including the CIA). The memoir details his documentation, his escape, how he preserved the record, and how he helped save the lives of 92 families and two animals trapped in the warzone. 

Dr. Mohammed began the talk by asking General Petraeus what Mosul Eye meant to him. General Petraeus described his arrival in Mosul and his time leading the 101st Airborne Division between April 2003 and February 2004, following the fall of Saddam Hussein’s government and the disbanding of the Iraqi military, a decision that unfortunately produced the seeds of the ISIS insurgency. He recounted the 2007 surge to combat escalating sectarian violence and the 2011 sectarian spike following the formal withdrawal of U.S. troops. General Petraeus turned to Dr. Mohammed and asked about June 10, 2014. Dr. Mohammed described his life at the time and how he was grading his students’ papers the day ISIS took over Mosul and Iraqi military forces fell.  

Dr. Mohammed talked about how ISIS collected intelligence, amassing 13 terabytes of documentation in Mosul alone and maintaining seven layers of internal security. He walked the audience through the July 2014 ISIS decree that forced the Christian population of Mosul to convert to Islam, pay a protection tax (jizya), leave the city, or face execution. He described how ISIS ruled systematically and instilled fear as they enforced the decree and wrote the letter ‘N’ on house doors for Nassarah, identifying the family and declaring the property an official asset of the Islamic State. He went on to talk about the brutality of ISIS and how they made public beheadings a performance, fixing lighting and camera angles.  

General Petraeus asked Dr. Mohammed about how he gathered information for the Mosul record. He described various methods, including observing on his walks, borrowing a white coat to enter the hospital, and posing as a taxi driver. He posted on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), creating a second social media account that ISIS did not have access to through his service provider, and hiding three copies of the record in constantly changing locations in his home. He noted the responsibility that he felt both to record what was happening and to keep those he loved safe, describing the tension between being Mosul Eye and being Omar. 

The discussion turned to how Dr. Mohammed continued work from Paris, where he began receiving phone calls about families trapped in Mosul. He explained that he contacted CENTCOM by messaging them on Twitter, which allowed him to relay information about the families’ locations to forces on the ground for rescue operations.

The event concluded with audience questions, followed by a book signing and photos with Dr. Mohammed.