Once Upon a Time in Iraq

Original version

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Documentaries

Factual: Politics

A closer look at the realities of war and life under Isis.

With unique personal archive from civilians and soldiers from both sides of the conflict, this series takes viewers closer to the realities of war and life under Isis than they have ever been before.

Series 1

BBC Four

BBC Persian TV

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The BBC's Persian language news and entertainment channel

James Bluemel

Simon Sykes

Jo Abel

Will Anderson

Andrew Palmer

KEO Films Ltd

Once Upon a Time in Iraq: Series 1: Legacy

Legacy

BBC Two - Once Upon a Time in Iraq, Series 1, Legacy

The emergence of Isis concludes the brutal legacy of the Iraq War.

America eventually leaves Iraq, but when Isis emerges to take over huge swathes of the country, the US is forced back to confront the brutal legacy of the 2003 invasion.

In 2004, Waleed Nesyif, heavy metal musician, is forced to flee Iraq following death threats for working for American journalists as a translator. By the time America finally withdraws all its troops from Iraq in 2011, he is a Canadian citizen, happily married and university educated. A year later, he returns to Iraq for the first time since leaving. It is not the same country he left. Naori Al Maliki is in his second term as prime minister, and his Shia-led sectarian policies reignite long-held Sunni grievances. The door is open for Isis. The legacy of the 2003 invasion plays out in a most brutal manner.

Omar Mohmamed, a university professor from Mosul, remembers clearly the night armed men invade his city, proclaiming they are the Islamic State. For the next three years, Omar lives under one of the most brutal regimes the world has ever known, witnessing daily executions, hand cutting and stonings. As the anonymous author of a blog exposing the atrocities committed by Isis, he risks his life to share the realities of life under Isis with the world.

He is not the only one to resist. Um Qusay risks her life by sheltering Shia soldiers in her house after they have escaped being executed by Isis. Seeing past sectarian differences, she explains, ‘I risked my life to help those boys because they were Iraqis’.

Once Upon a Time in Iraq: Series 1

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Once Upon a Time in Iraq

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