Latest from Ali Al-Baroodi
The Music Plays Again in Mosul
The maestro is back home in Mosul, along with many of the previously displaced musicians. The campus theater hall is being rebuilt, and the statue of Othman al-Mosuli is back on display by the railway station, waiting for the toots of trains that bring new visitors.
Walking in Mosul
After the war, we expected something like a Marshall Plan to revive Mosul. But instead, we found ourselves dependent on the international community and IMF loans to restore our war-torn city. With our government’s problems and the collapsing currency, I don’t know what Mosul will look like in five years.
Walk by the Wall
A university teacher from Mosul describes decades of hardship and horror in his city under Saddam Hussein’s regime, then the U.S. occupation, and under ISIS’s rule.