Flanked by friends on a busy downtown Baghdad street, Asa'ad al-Yassiri pulls out a tattered piece of paper. It's his medical release from the Iraqi military, allowing him leave for a bullet wound to his left arm.
His contingent was among the last to withdraw from Ramadi after an ISIS offensive.
He's disillusioned about how they left the key city -- especially the mystery surrounding the order to withdraw and how ISIS prisoners earlier were spared from execution.
In the brutal, seesaw struggle for territory and power between ISIS and central governments in Damascus and Baghdad, Ramadi has become the latest battleground in Iraq.
Since the takeover of the city in Anbar Province earlier this month, close to 55,000 people have fled, the United Nations has said. Most of the displaced persons headed to Baghdad, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) to the east.
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Bulldozers rigged with explosives
ISIS has proved to be dogged foe for the Iraqi military -- and that again was the case in the battle in which al-Yassiri found himself.
Al-Yassiri and his contingent were positioned just to the west of the city, in open terrain, using berms for cover. The men, about 140 in along this particular front, were split into smaller units of around two dozen.
ISIS, which calls itself the Islamic State, had targeted some of the positions on either side of al-Yassiri's unit and inside the city.
"There were three roadside bombs that took out two Humvees and killed five of us. Then they came at us with the bulldozers rigged with explosives," he says.
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The firefight lasted for hours, its final moments captured on a cell phone video. One soldier fires back from behind a berm. Right next to him is a body, that of a comrade killed in battle.
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