A young Iraqi shepherdess cools down buffaloes in wastewater filling the dried-up Diyala river which was a tributary of the Tigris, in the Al-Fadiliyah district east of Baghdad, on June 26, 2022. Iraq's drought reflects a decline in the level of waterways due to the lack of rain and lower flows from upstream neighboring countries Iran and Turkey. (Photo by Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP Photo)

A man dressed as Santa Claus arrives to distribute toys on children living in an impoverished neighbourhood in Iraq's southern city of Basra on December 26, 2020. (Photo by Hussein Faleh/AFP Photo)

People and security members run away as Kurdish animal rights activists release a bear into the wild after rescuing bears from captivity in people homes, in Dohuk, Iraq on February 11, 2021. (Photo by Ari Jalal/Reuters)

A model wears a face mask to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, designed by Iraqi designer Ziad Tariq at his workshop in Basra, Iraq, Monday, July 20, 2020. (Photo by Nabil al-Jurani/AP Photo)

Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, is locked under the rule of extremists from the Islamic State group trying to purge it of everything they see as contradicting their stark vision of Islam. A trove of photographs now housed at the Library of Congress offers a glimpse of a different Mosul – before wars, insurgency, sectarian strife and now radicals' rule. The scenes were taken in the autumn of 1932 by staff from the American Colony Photo Department during a visit to Iraq at the end of the British mandate. (Photo by AP Photo)

Shiite Muslim pilgrims march with banners towards the shrine city of Karbala ahead of the Arbaeen commemorations that mark the end of the 40-day mourning period for the seventh century killing of the Prophet Mohamed's grandson Imam Hussein ibn Ali, in the city of Nasiriyah in Iraq's southern Dhi Qar province on August 14, 2024. (Photo by Asaad Niazi/AFP Photo)

In this photo provided by Tasnim News Agency, relatives weep over the body of an earthquake victim, in Sarpol-e-Zahab, western Iran, Monday, November 13, 2017. An earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale rocked northern Iraq and Iran, the U.S. Geological Survey said on Sunday evening. Photo by Farzad Menati/Tasnim News Agency via AP Photo)

Civilians present their rations cards in order to receive humanitarian food aid being distributed by the Iraqi Red Crescent, in the eastern side of Mosul, Iraq, Tuesday, January 31, 2017. Iraqi forces declared Mosul's eastern half fully liberated, just over three months after the operation to retake the city from IS was formally launched in October. (Photo by Khalid Mohammed/AP Photo)