Iraqi Shiite fighters from the Hashed al- Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) paramilitaries hold a position near the village of Tal Abtah, south of Tal Afar, on November 30, 2016, during a broad offencive by Iraq forces to retake the city Mosul from Islamic State group jihadists. (Photo by Ahmad Al- Rubaye/AFP Photo)

An injured Iraqi Emergency Response Division (ERD) soldier hit by a mortar is held by another officer as they wait for medics to arrive at the Islamic State occupied Mosul Airport in west Mosul, part of the offensive to retake the city some two years after it fell to the hardline jihadist group, February 23, 2017. Iraqi forces encountered stiff resistance with improvised explosives, heavy mortar fire and snipers hampering their advance before they successfully took the airport. (Photo by Martyn Aim/Getty Images)

Men pull with a rope the body of an Islamic State fighter before burying him near Karamah, south of Mosul, Iraq November 11, 2016. (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

A Palestinian boy, who was displaced by Israel's military offensive with his family on south Gaza, holds a cat as he attempts to return to his home in north Gaza through an Israeli checkpoint, in the central Gaza Strip, on April 15, 2024. (Photo by Ramadan Abed/Reuters)

An Iraqi Army member launches a rocket during the operation to retake Mosul from Daesh terrorists in Jadid neighborhood as the clashes between Iraqi Army and Daesh terrorists continue in Mosul, Iraq on April 2, 2017. (Photo by Hemn Baban/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

A Iraqi soldier of the 9th division is seen within a Humvee in Shyma district in Mosul, Iraq, Tuesday, December 6, 2016. Iraqi forces, backed by the U.S.-led international coalition, launched a campaign in October to retake Mosul, the country's second largest city and IS's last major urban bastion in Iraq. (Photo by Manu Brabo/AP Photo)

Libyan forces allied with the U.N.-backed government fire a shell at Islamic State fighters' positions in Sirte, Libya August 15, 2016. (Photo by Ismail Zitouny/Reuters)

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)