In MosulвЂ™s Great Mosque, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared himself the head of the worldвЂ™s Muslims in July 2014. Mosul was Islamic StateвЂ™s most significant conquest in Iraq, part of what it called a вЂњcaliphateвЂќ that stretched into neighboring Syria. The Iraqi army capitulated and fled, leaving its weapons behind. The militants were welcomed by many fellow Sunnis, the majority of the cityвЂ™s population, who complained of injustices at the hands of IraqвЂ™s ShiвЂ™ite led government. Islamic StateвЂ™s reversal seemed improbable in June 2014 when its fighters swept into Mosul. The city, which was home to about two million people before the war, was liberated in July. But IвЂ™d tell her, every time I see a Daesh fighter, I get a grey hair,вЂќ he said, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State. вЂњMy mother used to say, youвЂ™re still young. Because you paid with blood, you paid with your life if you were caught,вЂќ said one of the informers, 30-year-old former army sergeant Alaa Abdullah, who remained in Mosul after its capture by Islamic State in 2014. Without their help, officials say, the fighting would have dragged on longer, snared in MosulвЂ™s narrow alleys. They included taxi drivers, Iraqi soldiers and defectors from Islamic State. They were among several hundred Mosul residents who provided information on Islamic State targets during the victorious nine-month battle for IraqвЂ™s second biggest city, Iraqi military and Kurdish intelligence officials said. FILE PHOTO: An Iraqi Airforce helicopter fires missiles at Islamic State fighters at the outskirts of Mosul, Iraq, February 26, 2017.

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