What Islamic State police files can tell us about everyday life under the caliphate

By Beatrice de Graaf, Professor of History and International Relations, Utrecht University
Ahmet S. Yayla, Assistant Professor; Director, Center for Homeland Security, Georgetown University

It is not often that regimes wither away and leave behind troves of documents for posterity. It happened in Germany with the Nazi Third Reich and under the German Democratic Republic. Now, to an extent, we have similar evidence of life under Islamic State rule as well.

The terrorist network still exists, with many chapters being active in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. But these function as “regular” terrorist organisations and don’t control territory. The caliphate, in its former incarnation of “semi-state organisation” in and around Mosul and Raqqa, no longer exists.

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