Unembedded

Photo by Kael Alford

SADR CITY, BAGHDAD, JULY 15, 2004
Women squeeze into a car on their way to a henna party, the Iraqi equivalent of a bridal shower, after they have had makeup applied in a salon. They ride behind tinted windows to protect their modesty.

Photo by Kael Alford

NAJAF, AUGUST 21, 2004
A father shows his hand to snipers as he carries his terrified child across the front line between U.S. forces and the Mahdi Army at the wrecked outskirts of the old city.

Photo by Kael Alford.

SHOALA, MARCH 28, 2003
A father and his brothers mourn an eight-year-old girl killed when a U.S. missile landed in a busy market in a Shiite neighborhood north of Baghdad. The U.S. bombing lasted twenty-one days, making way for the U.S.-led coalition invasion.

Photo by Kael Alford.

ZAFRANIA, APRIL 26, 2003
Angry residents of Zafrania confront U.S. soldiers guarding an ammunition stockpile after an accident launched a missile that killed people in nearby houses.

Photo by Rita Leistner.

RASHAD PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL, BAGHDAD, APRIL 17, 2004
A young patient, newly arrived from the southern Shiite town of Karbala, pleads to go home: “I don’t belong here. Please don’t make me spend the rest of my life here.”

Photo by Rita Leistner.

RASHAD PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL, BAGHDAD, APRIL 15, 2004
Patients had few activities to occupy them. One was watching television, which included the Coalition Provisional Authority’s daily live broadcasts and updates to the press. On this day, General Richard Myers, the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, was fielding questions on how he proposed to address the rising insurgency, especially Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. Myers underplayed the threat of the insurgents. A few months later the hospital grounds would shake from nearby bombs, and mortars would land in its courtyard as coalition forces fought the Mahdi Army right outside the hospital gates.

Photo by Rita Leistner.

SADR CITY, BAGHDAD, AUGUST 6, 2004
Members of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army rally in Sadr City.

Photo by Rita Leistner.

SADR CITY, BAGHDAD, AUGUST 7, 2004
Members of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army take to the streets in rebellion against the interim Iraqi government and American military occupation.

Photo by Rita Leistner.

KURDISTAN, APRIL 3, 2004
The Iranian-Kurdish wife of Osman Ocalan, a leader of the PKK Kurdish separatist group, lives simply at a camp hidden in the mountains of northern Iraq. Outlawed in Turkey, the PKK advocates an independent Kurdish homeland.

Photo by Thorne Anderson.

FALLUJA, SEPTEMBER 23, 2003
A doctor in the Falluja Hospital raises an X ray to point out head injuries to nine-year-old Hussein, whose home in the village of Sheker was attacked with American air strikes. His twelve-year-old brother was also seriously injured in the attack and three other members of his family were killed. A U.S. Army spokesperson did not acknowledge any mistakes and said that one “enemy fighter” was killed in the air strike.

Photo by Thorne Anderson.

NAJAF, August 27, 2004
Picking through the wreckage of battle in Najaf.

Photo by Thorne Anderson.

BAGHDAD, JULY 18, 2004
Young men and women venture out for the evening in Zowra Park. Socializing after dark in Baghdad ceases during periods of heavy fighting or suicide bombings, but rebounds as soon as there is a perceived lull. Still, mixed-gendered public outings are increasingly discouraged by religious conservatives’ censure.

Photo by Thorne Anderson.

SADR CITY, BAGHDAD, AUGUST 7, 2004
A young boy watches his relatives repair a rocket-propelled grenade launcher in the home of a Mahdi Army fighter.

Photo by Thorne Anderson.

NAJAF, AUGUST 27, 2004
A lone man walks through a devastated business and residential street west of the Imam Ali shrine. The street was a front line fighting position for the American Army and Mahdi Army fighters during a nearly three-week battle that left much of the old city and surrounding neighborhoods in ruins. A peace deal, brokered by Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani with the militant cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, allowed residents to emerge from refuge outside the city or hiding within it to survey their homes and businesses in the battleground.

Photo by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

NAJAF, AUGUST 25, 2004
A woman sits in front of a burning car fifty yards away from the shrine of Imam Ali. The car was hit by U.S. fire on Prophet Street, the main street leading to the shrine from the south, transformed into a sniper alley by U.S. forces.

Photo by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

SADR CITY, BAGHDAD, JUNE 5, 2004
A fighter loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr fires a mortar round at a U.S. Army position.

Photo by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

BAGHDAD, AUGUST 1, 2004
A man receives treatment at Kindi Hospital after suffering injuries when two apparent car bombs exploded just minutes apart outside Christian churches. Car bombs exploded outside at least six churches in Iraq on Sunday in an attack apparently coordinated to coincide with evening prayers.

Photo by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

BAGHDAD, SEPTEMBER 12, 2004
A young Iraqi civilian lies dead in Haifa Street as a U.S. armored personnel carrier burns in the background. Twenty-two Iraqi civilians were killed and forty-eight injured when U.S. helicopters opened fire on crowds celebrating around the burning vehicle, which was disabled by an insurgent attack. No American soldiers were killed in the fighting.