TIME

THE BURNING SANDS OF IRAQ

Firefighters try to put out what terrorists have started
A lone firefighter directs water toward a burning wellhead outside Qayyarah

WHEN ISIS RETREATED FROM THE BROKEN PLAINS south of Mosul last August, its militants did what defeated armies do in these parts: they scorched the earth. Saddam Hussein’s soldiers set alight some 700 oil wells on their way out of Kuwait in 1991, and after the 2003 U.S.

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