Ranja Jamal, a Rudaw journalist who is embedded with the Iraqi army was with Gardi when she died. He said she was looking for the deep hole called "Mosul’s Valley of Death", or Al Khafsa, where ISIS threw hundreds of people. The hole is in a valley south of the Mosul near a village called Al Athba. According to the Islamic State's doctrine, Muslims who oppose the group or fighters who leave the group cannot be buried in Muslim cemeteries. Al Athba is 20 kilometers south of Mosul and five kilometers from the main Baghdad-Mosul road. Gardi had information about the valley but she was not able to find it. On her way back, she met a Popular Mobilization Forces or Al-Hashd Al-Sha'abi group, and they took her to the place.