The News Minute| August 16, 2014| 11.00 am IST

Mohammed Abu Ali is a clockmaker living in Makhmour, near the border of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Vice News reports that Abu Ali, went to bed on August 8, and when he woke up the next day, Makhmour had become an abandoned town under the control of the Islamic State.

In an interview to Vice news, Abu Ali describes how he slept through the entire takeover. He in fact knew about the takeover only the next day evening as he went to the mosque. Vice news quotes him as saying, “In the mosque, there were at least 25 [fighters]. There were three cars with guns — one had a rocket launcher — right outside the mosque. When I walked into the mosque, everyone was looking at me. They all started asking each other, "Who is this, who is this? The one who caught me told them I was the only person left in Makhmour.”

For the next two days, Abu Ali stayed in his house, he could hear fighting outside.On the third day, he saw peshmerga soldiers back in his town.
Read the full interview here.