Mosul battle
US orders non-emergency embassy staff to leave Baghdad, Arbil
Washington has ramped up pressure on Tehran in recent days, accusing Iran of planning "imminent" attacks in the region, and bolstering the American military...
To track down the books, he has had to travel 400 kilometres south to Baghdad, and even a further 600 kilometres to Basra.
A year and a half after Iraqi forces recaptured Mosul from IS, residents have been hiring local photographers to capture mementos of their city's darkest days.
The official told Reuters the oilfields and the air base west of Kirkuk were still under Kurdish control.
Iraqi government troops captured the town of Mosul from Islamic State in June, but only after eight months of grinding urban warfare.
The city, which had a pre-war population of about 200,000, lies on the supply route between Syria and Mosul, 80 km to the east.
The offensive on Tal Afar, which lies on the supply route between Syria and the former Islamic State stronghold of Mosul, started on 20 August.
Some were intercepted but many evaded security forces and began setting up bases for their new operations.
Pockets of Mosul remain insecure and the city has been heavily damaged by nearly nine months of gruelling urban combat.
Stripped of Mosul, IS’s dominion in Iraq will be reduced to mainly rural, desert areas west and south of the city.
Iraq’s prime minister declared victory over Islamic State in Mosul on Monday, three years after the militants seized the city.
Islamic State’s defeat in Mosul three years after taking the city is a major blow for the hard-line Sunni Islamist group.
The military has predicted final victory this week after a grinding eight-month assault to oust Islamic State from the once two-million-strong city.
A US-led international coalition is providing air and ground support to the Iraqi forces fighting through the Old City’s maze of narrow alleyways.
In Syria, the Islamic State-held capital of Raqqa, is virtually encircled by a US-backed, Kurdish-led coalition.
The militants implemented an extreme version of Islam which associated toys with a face, like dolls, with idolatry.
Islamic State retaliated with a triple bombing on a neighbourhood in east Mosul, the other side the Tigris River.
The mosque was destroyed as Iraq's elite Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) units got within 50 meters of it, according to an Iraqi military statement.
The historic district is the last still under control of the militants in the city which used to be their capital in Iraq.