During the Battle of Mosul, three Iraqi policemen arrest ISIS drug smugglers. However, they are soon overrun by ISIS and run out of ammo while defending themselves inside a café building. One of the police officers, Kawa, a 21 year old Feyli Kurd recently enlisted as a police officer, loses his uncle during the gunfight. The Nineveh SWAT Team, while going on a mission of their own, find the stranded police officers and save them from the ISIS group, as well as execute the drug smugglers. The Nineveh SWAT Team, a police division made up of men native to Mosul who lost family members to ISIS and led by Commander Major Jasem, offers Kawa to join them since he lost his uncle to ISIS and is thus eligible to become part of their team. He accepts, while his partner, the other police officer named Jameel, offers to take Kawa’s uncle’s body for burial.

The SWAT team continue their mission. Kawa repeatedly asks about their mission objective but is always ignored. While resting inside an abandoned building, Kawa and Jasem notice Kawa’s previous partner, Jameel, returning and signalling to an ISIS car bomber the location of the SWAT team. Tomahawk, one of the SWAT team members, dies during the bomb blast. Commander Jasem gives Tomahawk’s axe to Kawa. As they take the body of their fallen SWAT member for burial, Kawa grows repeatedly frustrated as no one answers his questions and no one trusts him while Hooka accuses him of being a traitor’s partner.