Iraq. Telskuf. 2015.A destroyed statue of Jesus in a desecrated church on the front line with ISIS. As we made our way to the front line trench, several mortars were launched at our convoy, but they only ended up starting small brushfires. From the front line, the black flags of ISIS could be seen rippling in the light breeze a few hundred meters away. A few months later, ISIS launched a massive attack, spearheaded by ten suicide car bombs and several hundred fighters. Thirty-one airstrikes were called in to repel the attack, and 58 ISIS fighters were killed. An unreported number of Kurdish Peshmerga and Assyrian militia died in the battle, along with one American Navy SEAL. After ISIS was defeated in the region, Peshmerga and Iraqi forces grappled for influence, and Telskuf continued to be a flashpoint, seeing clashes between Peshmerga and Iraqi military and, later, Iranian-backed paramilitary groups.