The Widow’s Network takes you deep inside the battle against ISIS to reveal the American coalition’s most unexpected intelligence assets.

McDonell moved to Iraq in 2016, to better understand the collateral damage of America’s ongoing wars. What he found in the ruins of Tikrit, one of the last barriers between ISIS and Baghdad, was a covert alliance of women, embedded against ISIS and led by an Iraqi named Wahida, acting as unofficial spies for the US and Iraqi forces.

With her family killed by ISIS, Wahida was waging a war of her own—recruiting women willing to pose as wives of ISIS fighters. The result: air strikes that have killed ISIS leaders—and civilians.