Undated, Dec 7 (AP) He would wander the streets ofoccupied Mosul by day, chatting with shopkeepers and IslamicState fighters, visiting friends who worked at the hospital,swapping scraps of information.
He grew out his hair and his beard and wore the shortenedtrousers required by the extremists. He forced himself towitness the beheadings and stonings, so he could hear killerscall out the names of the condemned and their supposed crimes.
By night, anonymously from his darkened room, Mosul Eyetold the world what was happening. If caught, he too would bekilled.
But after more than three years, his double life hasgrown too heavy to bear. He misses his name.
His secrets consume him, sap energy he'd rather use forhis doctoral dissertation and for helping Mosul rebuild. Inconversations with The Associated Press, he agonized over howto end the anonymity that plagues him. He made his decision.
Mosul Eye is Omar Mohammed, historian, scholar, blogger. He is31.
The revelation of his identity is for his thousands ofreaders and followers, for all his volunteers in Mosul whohave been inspired by a man they have never seen. But aboveall, it is for the brother who died in the final battle andfor his grieving mother.
"I can't be anonymous anymore. This is to say that Idefeated ISIS. You can see me now, and you can know me now,"he told The Associated Press.
Mohammed first posted about the Islamic State group underhis own Facebook account, in the first few days after itsfighters swept into Mosul, but a friend told him he riskedbeing killed. So in those first days he made himself apromise: trust no one, document everything.
A newly minted teacher with a reputation for secularideas, he had lost his university job.
He found another calling.
"My job as a historian requires an unbiased approachwhich I am going to adhere to and keep my personal opinion tomyself," he wrote on that first day, June 18, 2014.
Mosul Eye became one of the outside world's main sourcesof news about the Islamic State fighters, their atrocities andtheir transformation of the city into a grotesque shadow ofitself.
During Friday sermons, Mohammed feigned enthusiasm. Hecollected propaganda to post online later. He drank tea at thehospital, fishing for information.
Much of what he collected went on the blog. Other detailshe kept in his computer, for fear of giving away his identity.
Someday, he promised, he would write history with them.
The most sensitive details initially came from two oldfriends: a doctor and a high school dropout who had joined anIslamic State intelligence unit.
Mohammed's information sometimes included photos of thefighters and commanders, complete with biographiessurreptitiously pieced together during the course of hisnormal life — that of an out-of-work scholar living at home.
"I used the two characters, the two personalities toserve each other," he said. He expanded into a Facebook pageand a Twitter feed to parcel out information at a time whenlittle news was escaping.
Intelligence agencies made contact as well and herebuffed them.
"I am not a spy or a journalist," he would say. "I tellthem this: If you want the information, it's published andit's public for free. Take it."In March 2015, his catalog of horrors got to him.
"I was super ready to die," Mohammed said. "I was sotired of worrying about myself, my family, my brothers. I amnot alive to worry, but I am alive to live this life. Ithought: I am done." (AP)CPS.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.