Islamic State leaves behind fear and humiliation in Kurdish settlement
Their cups of tea still lay half drunk on the table. Their bedding was scrumpled into a corner of the hallway. Propaganda remained, scrawled in black permanent marker pen on the office door.
The marks of occupation by the Islamic State are still fresh in the headquarters of the mayor in Mahmour, a mixed Kurdish settlement west of the provincial capital, Erbil.
The jihadists fled the town earlier this week in the wake of targeted American air strikes.
But they left behind them a Kurdish population riven with fear and humiliation at the speed with which their military, the Peshmerga, were forced to retreat....