[Published here July 14, 2019]
Baghdad (AFP) – Six drops of blood and a vial of ground-up bone: a sample of evidence that an Iraqi forensics lab has gathered of the Islamic State group’s multiple brutal crimes against the Yazidis.
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Men still missing, Yazidi women stitch together incomes after IS | AFP
[Published here July 14, 2019]
On the floor of her stuffy, dimly-lit tent in Iraq, Yazidi survivor Layleh Shemmo nimbly tugs floral pink fabric through her sewing machine, stitching together a living for her broken family.
Our Tales of Two Cities | AFP
[Published on AFP’s Correspondent Blog on May 24, 2019]
Mosul — “There are families living in this alleyway.” The Arabic words were hand-painted in red, black, and blue on a tattered canvas, pinned up where a small side street led off a main thoroughfare in Iraq’s Mosul. The alleyway looked anything but livable — bullet holes and craters from mortar rounds still scarred the walls around it nearly two years after the fighting had stopped, and sewage water gurgled down the cracked pavement. The banner, my AFP colleagues said, was hung to alert passing aid groups to needy residents eking out a living, unseen, in the battered labyrinth of west Mosul.
Don’t ‘politicise’ electricity, Iraq minister urges as summer nears | AFP
[Published here May 15, 2019]
Baghdad (AFP) – With temperatures rising on both the weather and security fronts across the region, Iraq’s freshman electricity minister is warning that politicising his country’s power sector could have ripple effects around the world.
Pompeo in surprise visit to Iraq amid ‘imminent’ Iran threats | AFP
[Published here on May 7, 2019]
Baghdad (AFP) – Iraq has promised to guarantee the safety of US interests from Iran, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday as he paid a surprise trip to Baghdad where he accused Tehran of planning “imminent” attacks.
Iraq offers to try foreign IS suspects, for a price | AFP
[Published here April 10, 2019]
Iraq has offered to put on trial hundreds of accused foreign jihadists in Baghdad in exchange for millions of dollars, potentially solving a legal conundrum for Western governments but sparking rights concerns. Continue reading
Yazidi doctor soldiers on in mental battle against IS | AFP
[Published here March 13, 2019]
Dohuk (Iraq) (AFP) – The military fight against the Islamic State group may be nearing an end, but one Yazidi doctor treating survivors is soldiering on against unseen scars the jihadists carved into her community.
Largest IS mass grave yet found outside Syria’s Raqa | AFP
[Published here on February 21, 2019]
Two feet deep, below a plot of farmland outside the Syrian city of Raqa, lies a large and deadly legacy of the Islamic State group: a mass grave holding an estimated 3,500 people.
Tribal truckers, praying paramedics: mixed bag on last IS front | AFP
[Published here on February 15, 2019]
As destitute civilians stumble out of the Islamic State group’s last enclave in east Syria, a mixed bag of unlikely characters are pitching in to help get them to safety.
In Syria, families flee IS holdout to dust and desperation | AFP
[Published here on February 14, 2019]
The cry echoed across the chalk-dry Syrian plain: “Water!” Within seconds, the truck carrying a few dozen bottles was emptied by parched refugees who had spent the night out in the open.
MAYA GEBEILY 