Nearly 20 years later, ‘Command & Conquer: Generals’ is as prophetic as it is playable
As video games become increasingly dumbed-down in the age of so-called “pay-to-win” and “freemium gaming” schemes, many gamers -especially those itching for real-time-strategy - have been looking to the past to scratch their strategic itch. This topic has come up several times over the years in the War is... Read more
ISIS Is Deploying More Women Suicide Bombers
ISIS is losing ground. And as the group retreats, it’s sending women through the front lines to blow themselves up among enemy soldiers and civilians. In July 2017, an Iraqi news network captured on video a female suicide bomber holding a baby moments before detonating her explosives in Mosul,... Read more
Pocos de los adolescentes radicalizados por el ISIS actúan realmente en solitario
El Estado Islámico, o ISIS, ha logrado un éxito creciente en el reclutamiento de adolescentes y preadolescentes en Occidente a través de los cuales planear y llevar a cabo sus ataques, según CTC Sentinel, el boletín informativo mensual del Combating Terrorism Center at West Point [Centro de Lucha contra... Read more
Kurdish Fighters Storm Buildings, Train for Urban War
Originally published on May 18, 2015. Peshmerga fighters of the 4th Battalion laid down covering fire as their comrades crossed a street in a half-built housing complex outside the city of Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan’s regional capital. Smoke from fires lit by coalition instructors added to the reality of the... Read more
We Watched Kurdish Troops Train With Guided Missiles
The students sweated in the July heat of a classroom on their last day of training. They watched as two young Peshmerga second lieutenants disassembled a large tripod for a MILAN anti-tank guided missile launcher. We had a chance to observe this missile training course during a visit to... Read more
Kurdish Bomb Technicians Play a Deadly Game of Cat and Mouse
Fine sand whips around a few spread-out temporary cabins that comprise a Kurdish Peshmerga base near the Iraqi city of Kirkuk. Attached to the side of one cabin, an irritating water-cooled air conditioner squeaks away as the midday July sun beats down, removing all but the smallest shadows. The... Read more
Kurdish Troops Grumble—Our Junk Weapons Are Killing Us
“When I shoot, the top of the rifle flies off,” Mahd Abdul Basit, a 28-year-old Peshmerga fighter told me while we stood a few hundred meters from Islamic State’s front line. Unlike many Kurdish troops, who must purchase their own weapons, Mahd’s rifle — a taped-up Kalashnikov appearing to... Read more

Matt Cetti-Roberts

Photojournalist, documentary photographer and correspondent in Iraqi-Kurdistan