"I have covered nearly the entire nine months that Iraqi forces spent retaking Mosul from Islamic State jihadists," writes Iraqi photographer Ahmad Al-Rubaye.

"I would spend weeks at the front with the soldiers, witnessing the killing, smelling the stench of death. I was gone so much that when I would come home for a few days of rest, my two-year-old daughter no longer recognized me. Why go through all that? I am Iraqi and I saw it as my duty to show to the outside world what was happening here."