![People walk past a banner (in black and white) belonging to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the city of Mosul, June 28, 2014. Since early June, ISIL militants have overrun most majority Sunni Muslim areas in the north and west of Iraq, capturing the biggest northern city Mosul and late dictator Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. The banner reads, "There is no God but God, and Mohammad is his messenger." REUTERS/Stringer (IRAQ - Tags: CIVIL UNREST POLITICS) - RTR3W71S](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2015/05/RTR3W71S.jpg/RTR3W71S.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=GV-_n5vD)
Saleh Elias is an Iraqi journalist who has worked for the German Niqash website for five years and for Iraqi newspapers, mainly al-Mada and Al-Alam al-Jadid. He received the Al-Ain al-Maftouha Award for journalism from the German MICT organization in 2015.
![People walk past a banner (in black and white) belonging to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the city of Mosul, June 28, 2014. Since early June, ISIL militants have overrun most majority Sunni Muslim areas in the north and west of Iraq, capturing the biggest northern city Mosul and late dictator Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. The banner reads, "There is no God but God, and Mohammad is his messenger." REUTERS/Stringer (IRAQ - Tags: CIVIL UNREST POLITICS) - RTR3W71S](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2015/05/RTR3W71S.jpg/RTR3W71S.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=GV-_n5vD)
![Tribesmen walk at a temporary camp set up to shelter Iraqis fleeing violence in Iraq's northern Nineveh province on June 12, 2014, in Aski kalak, 40 kms West of Arbil, in the autonomous Kurdistan region. Thousands of people who fled Iraq's second city of Mosul after it was overrun by jihadists wait in the blistering heat, hoping to enter the safety of the nearby Kurdish region and furious at Baghdad's failure to help them. many as half a million people are thought to have fled Mosul, which was captured by](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2015/04/450479622.jpg/450479622.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=FyDviKrZ)
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Saleh Elias
![Iraqis inspect the destruction caused by an explosion at the entrance of a monastery in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, 06 January 2008. Bombs exploded today outside two churches and a monastery in Mosul, wounding four people and slightly damaging the buildings, police said. AFP PHOTO/MUJAHED MOHAMMED (Photo credit should read MUJAHED MOHAMMED/AFP/Getty Images)](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2015/04/78825076.jpg/78825076.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=wf0Z0EIE)
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Saleh Elias
![Volunteers to fight the Islamic State, from different Iraqi factions including Kurdish and Yazidis, train at a camping area near Kurdish security points on Bashiqa mountain, around 15km Northeast of the Islamic State held city of Mosul, March 7, 2015. REUTERS/Asmaa Waguih (IRAQ - Tags: CIVIL UNREST) - RTR4SFUI](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2015/03/RTR4SFUI.jpg/RTR4SFUI.jpg?h=5021389d&itok=Ixg4xb0g)
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Saleh Elias