Thanks for listening to Embedded. We'd like to better understand who's listening to the show

and how you're using podcasts. So to help us out, we'd really appreciate it if you complete a

short anonymous survey at npr.org slash podcast survey. Podcast survey is all one word.

It takes less than 10 minutes to do the survey and really helps support the show. That's npr.org

slash podcast survey. And thanks. Hey, I'm Kelli McEvers and this is Embedded.

And there's this reality TV show in Iraq that airs every Friday night on state TV.

It's called in the grip of the law. And in a recent episode, we see two masked men

wearing military uniforms, dragging another man down the street.

This man is handcuffed. He's wearing an orange jumpsuit. He's been blindfolded and brought to

this scene in a blocked off street in Mosul. This has been Talb. He reported on this show for the

New Yorker. He's kneeling on the ground. They take off the blindfold. There's men behind him

carrying their weapons and it looks like the lead up to a street execution.

The man kneeling on the ground is named Muafak Ahmad Shahab. He is accused of being an ISIS.

He confesses that he helped the group and that he was there one day when ISIS executed five men.

Jay Aizard, evening. He says one of the executioners was his son.

The idea of this TV show is to let people see accused ISIS members get a taste of their own medicine.

So on the left side of the screen, we see actual footage of this ISIS execution. It's an

ISIS propaganda video. Five men in orange jumpsuits are kneeling on the ground on this same street

and then they're shot and killed. You can't see it but you can't hear it.

And on the right side of the screen is Muafak Ahmad Shahab kneeling in exactly the same way.

They literally copied the ISIS video and consciously did so.

Muafak says he regrets what he did.

...