Female Kurdish Peshmerga fighters affiliated with Iran's separatist Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK), are pictured at a base in an undisclosed location in the Arbil province, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, on December 1, 2022. Iranian-Kurdish rebel groups have for decades sought refuge in northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, but they have recently come under fresh fire amid weeks of protests in the neighbouring Islamic republic. (Photo by Safin Hamed/AFP Photo)

Shiite Muslim devotees reach to receive a blessing from the tomb of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Mohammed's grandson, at the Imam's shrine in Iraq's central holy city of Karbala on September 6, 2023, during the Arbaeen religious festival commemorating his seventh century killing. (Photo by Hussein Faleh/AFP Photo)

An Iraqi camel herder poses in the desert of Samawa in Iraq's southern province of al-Muthanna on January 27, 2024. (Photo by Hussein Faleh/AFP Photo)

This aerial view shows youths swimming to cool off in the waters of Iraq's Euphrates river during a heatwave, in the district of al-Hindiyah east of Karbala on June 7, 2024. (Photo by Karar Jabbar/AFP Photo)

Students of the Ballet Academy prepare to perform during the school annual ceremony in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, April 1, 2022. (Photo by Hadi Mizban/AP 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)

Ismail Mustafa, seen in 2007. “I was collecting mushrooms on the hill near here. I didn’t see the mine. There was a huge explosion. When I woke up I saw that both my legs were gone; I thought my life was over. My brother and another guy were with me. They made a stretcher from sticks and tied it together with clothing. It took two hours to get off the mountain. ‘My daughter has also been injured. She found a shell and brought it into the house and put it on the fire. She didn’t know what she was doing at the time – she was only three. She is blind and has lost an arm”. (Photo by Sean Sutton for the Mines Advisory Group/The Guardian)

A member from the Iraqi security forces beats an Islamic State insurgent, who was captured in Tikrit April 1, 2015. Iraqi troops and Shi'ite paramilitary fighters were battling Islamic State on Wednesday in northern Tikrit, which officials described as the Sunni Muslim militant group's last stronghold in the city. (Photo by Alaa Al-Marjani/Reuters)