A supporter of Iraqi populist leader Moqtada al-Sadr gashes his head with blade during a ceremony marking Ashura, the holiest day on the Shi'ite Muslim calendar, at Tahrir Square in Baghdad,,Iraq on August 9, 2022. (Photo by Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters)

Iraqi children play with a ball on a street blocked with burning tyres, amid a general strike in the southern city of Basra, on November 25, 2019. The demonstrations rocking the capital and Shiite-majority south since October 1 are the biggest grassroots movement the country has seen in decades. Sparked by outrage over rampant government corruption, poor services and lack of jobs, they have since gone straight to the source: calling out the ruling system as inherently flawed and in need of a total overhaul. (Photo by Hussein Faleh/AFP Photo)

A boy attends Eid al-Adha prayers on the street outside Abu Hanifa mosque in Baghdad Adhamiya district, during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Iraq, July 31, 2020. (Photo by Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters)

Human wax figures to build scenes depicting traditional life in a new museum are seen in Basra, Iraq on June 12, 2023. (Photo by Mohammed Aty/Reuters)

A man takes a block of ice out of an ice factory for sale in Iraq's southern city of Basra on July 8, 2023. (Photo by Hussein Faleh/AFP Photo)

An Iraqi army cadet participates in “the leap of faith”, from a bridge as part of their training, in Baghdad, Iraq on December 15, 2023. (Photo by Ahmed Saad/Reuters)

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)

Iraqi soldiers from 9th Armoured Division give drops of water to a dehydrated child rescued earlier by soldiers at the frontline, during the ongoing fighting between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants near the Old City in western Mosul, Iraq June 13, 2017. (Photo by Erik De Castro/Reuters)