IVOR PRICKETT

01 CAR BOMB AFTERMATH

Soldiers of the Iraqi special forces survey the aftermath of an ISIS suicide car bomb that reached their lines in one of the last areas to be liberated in east Mosul

Lens Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM

Exposure 1/160 sec, f/11, ISO400

IRISH-BORN photojournalist, Ivor Prickett, is settling back into his New York apartment, having just flown back from Syria where he was covering the war against ISIS for the New York Times. On his latest foray to the war-ravaged country, Ivor documented the supposed last stand by ISIS in their battered desert enclave of Deir ez-Zor. Just over two weeks earlier, American forces declared the battle a success and the war against the extreme Islamic state to be over, their caliphate defeated. But with nearly three years of hardened experience photographing this brutal conflict across Iraq as well as Syria, Ivor has every reason to be sceptical about such claims. For the next few days, he’ll enjoy some well-deserved R and R in New York, including time for this interview…

Is the war against ISIS really over?

That’s a good question and I’m not sure I have the answer. On this most recent trip the access was really bad. The Syrian Kurdish forces who are in control in the north east of the country restricted our movement this time. They wouldn’t let us go down to Deir ez-Zor, the scene of the last stand by ISIS, citing sleeper cells and attacks that were still going on. I think there’re still clean-up operations going on; they’re still hunting down elements of ISIS that were hiding there. For sure, ISIS has largely been degraded on the ground and had this huge territory they controlled taken away from them. They don’t govern anything in Iraq or Syria anymore, but the threat is still there.

02 A CHANCE TO ESCAPE

Civilians walk past the