Children stand in front of their traditional reed house of the Chibayish marshes in Nasiriyah, Iraq, Friday, September 6. 2024. Deep within Iraq's celebrated marsh lands, conservationists are sounding alarm bells and issuing a stark warning: Without quick action, the UNESCO protected site could all but wither away. (Phoot by Hadi Mizban/AP Photo)





A vehicle carries the coffin of a commander from Iraq's Kataib Hezbollah armed group who was killed in what they called a “Zionist attack” in the Syrian capital Damascus on Friday, during a funeral in Baghdad, Iraq on September 22, 2024. (Photo by Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters)





An Iraqi fisherman sails at sunset along the Shatt al-Arab river, formed at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in Iraq's southern city of Basra on October 25, 2024. (Photo by Hussein Faleh/AFP Photo)





A man and children pray by a symbolic grave for slain Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah in Iraq's Shiite holy city of Najaf, on November 15, 2024. Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli air strike on Beirut's southern suburbs on September 27, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (Photo by Qassem Al-Kaabi/AFP Photo)





People browse through books displayed during the annual book festival in Abu Nawas street in central Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, November 16, 2024. (Photo by Hadi Mizban/AP Photo)





A person from the Iraq Planning Ministry carries out the national population census in Najaf, Iraq, on November 20, 2024. (Photo by Alaa Al-Marjani/Reuters)





A violinist from the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra plays during a concert at the Iraqi National Theatre in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, November 27, 2024. (Photo by Hadi Mizban/AP Photo)





Iraqi army snippers take part in a parade during a ceremony marking the sixth anniversary of the defeat of the Islamic State (IS) group, in the Abu Ghraib area west in Baghdad, on December 10, 2024. Iraq declared victory over fighters from the IS group at the end of 2017 after a three-year battle in which the jihadists had seized large swathes of the country. But jihadist cells still launch sporadic attacks against the army and police, often in rural areas. (Photo by Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP Photo)





A full moon appears over a rocky hilltop as people stand silhouetted against its glow in Duhok, Iraq, on December 14, 2024. (Photo by Ismael Adnan Yaqoob/Anadolu via Getty Images)





Iraqi Muslim girls, who traditionally begin wearing the hijab – a head covering worn in public – at the mandatory age of nine, take part in a ceremony organized at a stadium in Basra on December 19, 2024. (Photo by Hussein Faleh/AFP Photo)





Iraqi Christians attend a Christmas Eve mass at the Sacred Heart Church of the Syriac Catholics in Basra, Iraq, Tuesday, December 24, 2024. (Photo by Nabil al-Jurani/AP Photo)





A circus performance is staged in Baghdad, Iraq, on December 25, 2024. (Photo by Xinhua News Agency/Rex Features/Shutterstock)





Fireworks explode during New Year celebrations in Baghdad, Iraq, on January 1, 2025. (Photo by Ahmed Saad/Reuters)





Iraqi army helicopters fly in formation as soldiers march during a military parade to celebrate the 104th anniversary of the founding of the Iraqi army at the Camp Taji military base on the outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq on January 6, 2025. (Photo by Ahmed Saad/Reuters)





Sabah Al-Sudani who runs two shops selling audio cassettes and other vintage items of yesteryear, sits at his shop, in Baghdad, Iraq, on January 21, 2025. The once ubiquitous audio cassette is now seen by many as a relic of simpler times, but for Sudani the cassettes offer a nostalgia to a period he feels Arab music saw its peak. (Photo by Ahmed Saad/Reuters)





Shiite Muslims carry a portrait of Imam Ali bin Abi Talib, as they attend a symbolic funeral to commemorate the death of Imam Musa al-Kadhim, in Iraq's southern city of Basra on January 26, 2025. Pilgrims from various Iraqi provinces undertake a yearly march on foot to reach the shrine of al-Kadhim in Baghdad, to commemorate the 795 CE death of the Imam who is believed to have been poisoned by agents of the then ruler Harun al-Rashid. (Photo by Hussein Faleh/AFP Photo)





Silhouette of the minaret of Al-Imam Muhsin Mosque is seen in front of the redness of the sky during sunset in Mosul, Iraq on January 29, 2025. (Photo by Ismael Adnan Yaqoob/Anadolu via Getty Images)





Skateboarders practice in the first skatepark of Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, February 1, 2025. (Photo by Ammar Khalil/AP Photo)





A picture shows a view of the historic Great Mosque of al-Nuri with its “Al-Hadba” leaning minaret dating back to the 12th century, in old Mosul on February 5, 2025, during a ceremony celebrating the final phases of of restoration work on heritage monuments in the city that was damaged during the fight with the Islamic State (IS) group. Eighty percent of Mosul's old city was destroyed in the fight against IS, and more than 12,000 tons of rubble was removed for a UNESCO restoration project, which included the famous Al-Hadba or "hunchback" leaning minaret and its historic Al-Nuri Mosque, Al-Tahira and Our Lady of the Hour churches, and 124 heritage houses. (Photo by Zaid Al-Obeidi/AFP Photo)





Iraqi Kurdish women work at a hand-weaving Kurdish traditional carpet shop, in the district of Raniya, about 70 kilometres (43 miles) east of Arbil, the capital of Iraq's northern autonomous Kurdish region, on February 11, 2025. (Photo by Safin Hamid/AFP Photo)