NYT criticized over controversial “ISIS Files”

CAIRO – 5 June 2018: Rukmini Callimachi, New York Times correspondent, made headlines of media outlets after announcing that she has collected about 15,000 internal documents related to the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist group raising controversy on the ethical and legal considerations of publishing such materials.

New York Times was criticized by some of its readers over the publication prompting the newspaper to open the door for everyone to submit questions on its website over the issue while Callimachi responded to them.

Callimachi published a report titled “The ISIS Files” in April to disclose her investigation into thousands of internal ISIS documents that she recovered from five reporting trips to Iraq. The long-time foreign correspondent has collected documents believed to reveal the details of the day-to-day ISIS governance of the so-called Islamic Caliphate.

In 2014, ISIS founded a state that was acknowledged by no one except themselves. And yet for nearly three years, they controlled a stretch of land that included a 100-mile coastline in Libya, a section of Nigeria’s lawless forests and a city in the Philippines, as well as colonies in at least 13 other countries. By far the largest city under their rule was Mosul in Iraq.

Nearly all of that territory has now been lost, but Callimachi’s collected documents may answer the troubling question: How did ISIS hold onto so much land for so long?