For centuries, the deserts and mountains of the Middle East have been steeped in myth and mystery.

From ancient conquerors to modern armies, those who marched into these lands often returned with stories of strange and unexplainable encounters.

In more recent times, the deserts of Afghanistan and Iraq have become the backdrop for some of the world's most intense conflicts, and with them, unsettling reports from soldiers on the ground.

Amidst the dust and darkness of desert warfare, they tell of figures glimpsed through night vision, of shadows moving where no enemy should be,

and of confrontations with beings that seemed anything but human.

Even today, whispers persist that in these unforgiving landscapes, there may still be something in the desert. I'm The

The Deserts have been the backdrop for some of history's most brutal wars.

These are landscapes that strip men of comfort, deplete armies of strength and bury empires

beneath shifting sands.

From the ancient clashes of Persia and Greece, to the Crusades in the Levant, to the armoured

campaigns of North Africa during the Second World War, the deserts themselves have always

been as much an adversary as the human

foes encountered there. Afghanistan, with its vast barren plains and jagged mountain ranges,

has long carried the ominous nickname, the Graveyard of Empires. Time and again, powerful

nations have marched their armies into its terrain only to suffer staggering

losses and eventual retreat the british the Soviets and more recently the americans all have learned

the cost of fighting a war in such unforgiving conditions ir Iraq, though very different in culture and history, has posed similar challenges.

Its southern deserts are harsh and unrelenting, whilst its northern landscapes blur into rugged mountains.

From the Gulf War of the early 1990s to the later US-led invasion in the 2000s, soldiers stationed

in Iraq faced not only insurgents, but the relentless exhaustion of desert life,

scorching days, freezing nights, and endless horizons that left men vulnerable and exposed.

Yet alongside the hardships of terrain and climate, another thread runs through the history

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