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)

Turkish Kurds watch the Syrian town of Kobani from near the Mursitpinar border crossing, on the Turkish-Syrian border in the southeastern town of Suruc, October 19, 2014. (Photo by Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters)

A woman with a Hello Kitty tattoo waits in line to attend the Hello Kitty Con, the first-ever Hello Kitty fan convention, held at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA Thursday, October 30, 2014, in Los Angeles. The convention was held to honor the character's 40th birthday. (Photo by Jae C. Hong/AP Photo)

In this December 19, 2014 photo, a man stands beside his 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Air car in Havana, Cuba. U.S. car sales have been banned in Cuba since 1959. Cubans have been have been forced to patch together Fords, Chevrolets and Chryslers that date back to before Fidel Castro's revolution which can make it appear like the country is stuck in a 1950s time warp. Since the Communist economic system isn't likely to change soon, many of those cars will have to stay on the road for years. (Photo by Desmond Boylan/AP Photo)

Aeronautics and Space engineer at France's Compagnie Maritime d'Expertises, or Comex, Arnaud Prost (C) meets with a jogger as he tests on the ground the “Gandolfi 2” underwater training suit for spacewalk, on January 20, 2016 in the calanques region (rocky inlets) of Marseille. The underwater training suit “Gandolfi 2”, developed with the European Space Agency (ESA), is designed for training astronauts underwater to simulate space gravity for the astronaut's extravehicular activities (EVAs). (Photo by Boris Horvat/AFP Photo)

A reveler wearing sheepfur costume is seen in front of a bonfire on which they burn a coffin symbolizing winter during the closing ceremony of the traditional carnival parade in Mohacs, 189 kms south of Budapest, Hungary, 07 February 2016. The carnival parade of people, the so-called busos, dressed in such costumes and frightening wooden masks, using various noisy wooden rattlers is traditionally held on the seventh weekend before Easter to drive away winter, and is a revival of a legend, which says that ethnic Croats ambushed the Osmanli Turkish troops, who escaped in panic seeing the terrifying figures during the Turkish occupation of Hungary. (Photo by Tamas Soki/EPA)

In this photograph taken on February 18, 2016, Pakistani children ride on swings in the predominantly Pashtun Korangi District of Karachi. In a rundown district of Karachi, Rabia balks at a neighbour's proposal to vaccinate her children, demonstrating one of the biggest hurdles to eradicating polio in Pakistan by the end of the year: confused and frightened parents. (Photo by Asif Hassan/AFP Photo)

A general view of the ghost town of a former Soviet military radar station near Skrunda, Latvia, April 9, 2016. (Photo by Ints Kalnins/Reuters)