Specifically, talking about Fallujah, Operation Phantom Fury was the first major military offensive I had witnessed that closely.

To put it more simply, I am fascinated by propaganda, and wars are moments in history when propaganda is at its strongest and most obvious. Being present for major events, I can witness at the same time “ le champs et le contre champ” of ongoing history. I am more interested in the understanding of history and by the gap between events and the way they are depicted in the media, that storytelling. I was comparing my experience of conflicts with photographers who were embedded for months on the front line during World War II, for example. You have said previously that you don’t consider yourself a ‘war photographer’, that you don’t spend enough time in conflict zones to really experience war in the way some do… This time in Fallujah must have been very intense – how does it fit into or reflect that view?Įven though I have been in dozens of conflict areas in the past 15 years, I do not consider myself a “war photographer”. Warning: The following article contains graphic images which some readers may find upsetting. Here, on the 15 th anniversary of the battle’s start, the photographer discusses the work he made over that week, his changing feelings about the men he was photographing, and one particular image which represents “the culmination of contempt and dehumanization” that grows in those at war.

Jérôme Sessini was in Fallujah embedded with US Marines of Charlie Company, at work in the north eastern sector of the city for one week. The fighting in the city has since been recognized by many as the most intense urban warfare since the battle of Huế city during the Vietnam War.

The US-led effort against insurgents in the city was code-named Operation Phantom Fury, and marked the first instance of Coalition military action against a purely insurgent force, since the toppling of the Ba-athist government in 2003. The Second Battle of Fallujah started on November 7, 2004, and lasted one and a half months – ending just before Christmas Eve.

Operation phantom fury tshirt