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Since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, tens of thousands of ancient artifacts and pieces of art have been looted and smuggled out of the country.

This week, the US agreed to return more than 17,000 treasures to Iraq, including an ancient clay tablet containing a portion of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Related:Germany to returnlootedBenin Bronzes to Nigeria

The majority of the artifacts date back 4,000 years to ancient Mesopotamia and were recovered from the USin a recent trip by Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi. Other pieces were also returned from Japan, Netherlands and Italy, Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said in a joint press conference with Culture Minister Hasan Nadhim.

Theres still a lot of work ahead in this matter. There are still thousands of Iraqi artifacts smuggled outside the country," Nadhim said.

Iraq's government has been slowly recovering the plundered antiquities for decades but archaeological sites across the country continue to suffer from neglect due to a lack of funds.

Related:Benin negotiates with France to return precious objects taken during colonial war

Nada Shabout, a professor of art history and coordinator of the Contemporary Arab and Muslim Cultural Studies Initiative at the University of North Texas, joined The World's host Marco Werman to discuss Iraq's stolen cultural heritage.

Marco Werman:First of all, Nada, how did these pieces get to the US in the first place? Where have they been?

Nada Shabout:Since 2003, and all the looting that had happened [much] of which was very organized and people knew exactly what they were taking out it sort of was smuggled through the region, through the UAE, through Jordan at times, and found its way to where it wound up to be.

What was your reaction when you heard the US will be returning these artifacts and this art to Iraq?

To be honest, it was a refreshing piece of news. Returning them is great. But also, this is just a little drop in a bucket full of water. So, this is a good step, but neither resolves the problem of all the looted works, nor does it really actually establish a system for stopping or returning.

So, if it's a drop in the bucket, let's pull back. What has the US war in Iraq done to the country's cultural heritage? And is it just the 2003 invasion and occupation, or do we have to go back to Operation Desert Storm in 1991 to understand the full impact of the looting?

Have you ever brought this up with the directors of museums when you see these artifacts?

Yes. And in fact, even one time I wrote to Interpol, who were very appreciative of the information, because I know of two works that were being sold [on] the black market in Amman. And their response was that "We appreciate your word[s], but we really need an official intervention. We need the Iraqi government to acknowledge that these works are looted."

So, the 17,000 artifacts and treasures will return to Iraq. But you've written, Nada, that looting and smuggling continues in Iraq. Explain what's going on.

Yes, as a matter of fact, looting does continue and the state of the cultural heritage is not any better than it was in 2003. I'm writing the same things that I wrote in 2003. I am making the same pleas of 2003. The archeological sites are not really well protected. The looting continues. Much of the lost artifacts are not returned. There's no money for restoration. There [has] been no interest in helping the Museum of Modern Art pick up where it is. What I try to do with the Modern Art Iraq Archive website, which was about documenting, was to try to trace. And no one knows, or no one wants to say, where are the works, what were the works. Only the artists who were alive were identifying their own works. And so, there's no sort of organized effort to identify archive documents, as well as, then, try to find these works. And by not returning, or by not even knowing what was looted, the country is deprived of its history. The Iraqi people need to know their whole history Mesopotamia, the Islamic and the modern. You know, this is a living culture. In Iraq, if you go to Iraq, you'll be treated to a famous way of cooking fish: masgouf fish. That's actually how Iraqis cooked it with the same recipes since the Mesopotamian times.

Wow. So, professor, I mean, to that point, you're from Baghdad. Your career is devoted to art and Iraq's own rich history. Tell us a bit more about what Iraqis have been deprived of in recent years. Like, what is the one thing that the Iraq museum has sadly been missing that Iraqis should have seen?

So, you know, since the protests that were started in 2019, when we see on TV, the protesters, and their art represented as the contemporary Iraqi art, which is graffiti and reactionary and protest art, which is great, but that's by no means contemporary Iraqi art. That actually denies the heritage of their modernism. If those artists, themselves, are not able to see the heritage in the museum, then they don't really know how they got to where they are now. And what they're doing, and what they're learning, they think it's all new. The sad thing about it is that those artists would have been able to pick up where the modernists, and the other Iraqi artists [left off]. Because Iraqi art, in the region, was quite progressive and recognizable. And in fact, many of the artists of the Arab world studied in the academy in Baghdad. So, this is the heritage that Iraqis are deprived of. How will they know how to move forward if they don't know what their past [was]?

So, what do you think needs to be done to help restore and better protect Iraq's cultural heritage? And, are Iraqi officials active in making this happen?

Some Iraqi officials are. I think things are improving to some point. The problem is, they may be overwhelmed with what they have to be doing. But I know that they have not really put enough resources in documentation and archiving, let alone finding. But, there needs to be a more coordinated effort worldwide. At this moment, it's us, academics, scholars, archeologists, historians who are [making] these efforts.

This interview has beenlightlyeditedand condensed for clarity. AP contributed to this report.

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Iraq needs to reclaim its cultural past to develop its future, art historian says - The World

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As the United States draws troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, a source of injury and death will cease. But research by the Veterans Health Administration will continue. Two years ago we checked in with one of VAs top researchers into brain injury and neuropathology. The chief of neuropathology at the VA Boston Healthcare System, Dr. Ann McKee returned to Federal Drive with Tom Temin for an update.

Tom Temin: And good to have you back.

Dr. Ann McKee: Well, thank you. Its a pleasure to be here.

Tom Temin: And I think of you as the brain slice library lady, which is kind of an odd way to put it, but, you are known for the samples and the pathological pieces of brain that you keep and learn from. What has been some of the latest findings?

Dr. Ann McKee: Well, the war in Afghanistan might be ending, but the veterans and the other individuals who are exposed to these repetitive concussive events, the repetitive blast exposures, that problem doesnt go away. There were over 300,000 that were exposed, and they continue to live with some difficulties. And, our research, I am the brain donor lady, I run a big brain bank on trauma over 1,100 brains who are in that bank. And weve only been doing that for the last 13 years. But we also run the ALS and PTSD brain bank. So yes, I do see a lot of brains. And what weve learned from those is that theres injuries after those exposures, and theyre not all the same. Veterans are different. And I dont need to tell you that, but a lot of them play sports football, hockey and that makes them at risk for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which we clearly see in some of the veterans whove been exposed to blast or concussive injury. And rarely we see CTE in people that have not been both, athletes and military service people. So, its much less common if they werent an athlete of some sort. But we do see CTE, the disease that weve described. So, I think clearly, in football players, we do see that in military veterans too. But almost all of them have some sports history, it doesnt have to be a lot, but most of them have a dual exposure. Were continuing to try to understand those symptoms that become so disabling and the vets the sleep disorder, the depression, the anxiety, the changes in their behavior, and personality. Those are such difficult issues difficult for them difficult for their loved ones those are multifactorial, and theyre hard to pinpoint. We still dont have a good way to diagnose them during life, how to pick up the real issue at hand for each person. But were getting closer. We get closer every day. So the work continues.

Tom Temin: And is it possible to know whether if someone has a brain injury of this severity, once that occurs, now we know that there is a cumulative effect if you keep getting hit, for example, or keep getting a blast shockwave, but once those events are over, does the brain stay in a given state, or does it continue to possibly deteriorate?

Dr. Ann McKee: Thats the thing. Sometimes it stabilizes, which is awesome, or, and even improves. So the person is learning adaptive neural mechanisms different brain pathways to overcome the injury or theyre repairing the injury because the brain is capable of a certain degree of repair. But unfortunately, some individuals continue to progress. And those are the individuals that we really need to keep a close eye on. Because they become so despondent. They feel like no one can validate what theyre experiencing. Theyre experiencing things that are difficult to diagnose we dont have a great way to detect brain injury except with a multitude of research techniques. And then they are at risk, because these guys develop suicidal thoughts, this disabling depression, terrific anxiety, sleep disorder, substance use, because theyre trying to cope as best they can. Those are the guys we really need to keep in our care system, evaluate, and as best as the medical system can, hug them and keep them feeling as well as possible.

Tom Temin: Were speaking with Dr. Ann McKee, chief of neuropathology at the VA Boston Healthcare System. And speaking of giving people the high touch type of treatment and the hug and so on, I imagine the last year and a half of separation among people has really been tough on that particular population.

Dr. Ann McKee: Oh, absolutely. Feelings of isolation, feelings of Im the only one in the universe thats going through this, theres something deeply wrong with me. It just exacerbates all of these issues. So the person thinks theyre somehow responsible for these issues. And that cant be further from the truth. That they are all valiant warriors. Dealing with a brain injury, it takes a tremendous amount of perseverance, tremendous resilience, and just sort of, youre coping, to really try to get through these dark days. And its not easy. And we dont have great answers. But we keep pushing the envelope. I think were a lot further along than we were six years ago. Six years ago, we knew nothing. Now we have a better idea, but we still dont have great treatments. In the next six years, Im hoping that we have treatment.

Tom Temin: And do you have a system for reviewing, say, a sample that you might have put in the library, as you mentioned, 13 years ago, or 10 years ago? And do you ever go back to them and take a fresh look, based on some new learnings that might have come in from a new case?

Dr. Ann McKee: Absolutely. We dont throw anything away, we keep everything in what we consider the optimal condition. Every brain is very, very precious to us. We, of course, maintain a very high level of privacy and no ones private information is released. But, we use those brains continually. We never stop, we keep going back. The science advances by highly qualified individuals all over the world, certainly all over the country, studying these disorders from all their different points of expertise. And yes, we go back constantly, and every brain I just want to emphasize is treated with such the utmost care and consideration.

Tom Temin: And what is the process to convince someone that is perhaps in distress, and also perhaps at the end of their life? Its a difficult ask, I imagine to donate that organ when theyre gone, because it does raise the question that, yes, youre going to die eventually, and perhaps not unhappy circumstances. How do you go about that? How do you convince people in a humane way that this is really something thats helpful to those that come after?

Dr. Ann McKee: Well, if someone has a suspicion, if they have a chronic condition, they realize the end is near, the ask is different. But in every case, this is a way to give back to advance the science, advanced knowledge so that your fellow service people can hopefully reduce their suffering in the future. This is a way to help your colleagues, your peers, the people that were with you on all these tours and are suffering some of the same symptoms. We may not have been quick enough to help you, but this is a way that you can help them. I think that resonates with a great deal of military service people. Theres a great esprit de corps, theres comradeship, that feeling of helping those who come after is really part of the psyche, I think of most veterans.

Tom Temin: And you get the sense that the military has become more receptive to the idea of preventing brain injury in training and in exercises outside of combat?

Dr. Ann McKee: I think they have but we have a long way to go, because their goal is to produce the most valiant warrior, but at the same time, they need to protect the most precious organ in your body, which is your brain. Your brain actually is responsible for your identity who you think of as yourself. Its your way of thinking, your memory, your emotions, your personality. It is such a precious thing. And I think its slowly where organizations like the military, like major sports leagues are adopting safer policies. But its a long, long haul, because in the short run, its difficult for them.

Tom Temin: Well I think some of the sports leagues look at the dollar signs before they look at the human side. And thats a pretty hard culture to crack.

Dr. Ann McKee: Id say youre absolutely right. And unfortunate because the athlete and the military personnel, theyre our most precious commodity. Those sports wouldnt be so popular if the athletes themselves werent so gifted. And certainly our military cant run without incredible people. So I just want to keep the people, the importance of that human being alive for these major entities.

Tom Temin: Dr. Ann McKee is chief of neuropathology at the VA Boston Healthcare System. As always, thanks so much for joining me.

Dr. Ann McKee: Well thank you. Its been a pleasure.

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Even after troops leave Afghanistan, Iraq, resulting brain injury research continuing for VHA - Federal News Network

VILNIUS Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis says he's been assured by his Iraqi counterpart Fuad Hussein that a plane that took off from his country for Minsk on Friday is empty and is meant for collecting Iraqi nationals willing to go home.

"In the minister's words, it's an empty plane sent to collect people who have asked to come back. Several sources have confirmed that information," the minister told BNS on Friday.

The Iraqi Airways plane landed in Minsk before noon.

Based on unverified information, some 300 Iraqis have expressed their wish to go home, Landsbergis said.

Iraqi Airways announced on Thursday it was suspending flights to Minsk for a week. Landsbergis says he's been assured that flights suspended for ten days. The minister also said he asked Hussein for flights from Iraq to Minsk not to be resumed at all.

Landsbergis also says he's not received information on whether Iraq will send more planes to the Belarusian capital to collect its nationals.

"We agreed with the minister that we from the Foreign Affairs Ministry, with other institutions, will record people who want to go back. We have already asked documents of part of people from Iraq, and I have asked for them to be sent immediately so that these people dont change their mind," the minister said.

Lithuania wants flights from Iraq to Minsk to be suspended as part of people who arrive on these planed later attempt to illegally cross its border with Belarus.

Over 4,000 irregular migrants mostly Iraqi citizens have walked into Lithuania from Belarus illegally so far this year.

Lithuania has a state-level extreme situation declared over the migration influx which it says is being orchestrated by the Belarusian regime.

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Plane arrives in Minsk from Iraq to collect those willing to go back Lithuanian formin - Baltic Times

WASHINGTON The U.S. military launched airstrikes against Iranian-backed militias in Syria in retaliation for drone attacks, the Pentagon announced Sunday evening.

The strikes targeted sites used to launch drone attacks on U.S. personnel and facilities in Iraq, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said in a statement.

"Specifically, the U.S. strikes targeted operational and weapons storage facilities at two locations in Syria and one location in Iraq, both of which lie close to the border between those countries," Kirby said. "Several Iran-backed militia groups, including Kata'ib Hezbollah and Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, used these facilities."

F-15 and F-16 warplanes carried out the airstrikes, targeting three facilities that had been used to control the drones and for logistics, according to a defense official who was not authorized to speak publicly. All the pilots returned safely. It's too early to tell whether there were casualties on the ground among civilians or militants, the official said.

Navy Cmdr. Jessica McNulty said Sunday night that Iranian-backed militias launched five drone attacks against facilities used by U.S. and allied troops in Iraq since April. Militia members have also fired rockets.

The U.S. strikes hit their intended targets, McNulty said. "Their elimination will disrupt and degrade the operational capacity of the militia groups and deter additional attacks," she said.

President Joe Biden ordered a similar retaliatory strike in February. That was the first attack ordered by Biden and came in response to rocket attacks on a base in northern Iraq that killed a contractor and wounded U.S. and allied troops.

In April, U.S. officials attributed an attack on a base in northern Iraq to Iran-backed forces using small drones.

Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the top officer at U.S. Central Command, said attacks by small drones were a top concern.

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"The small drone threat, the quad-copter less than the arm's length of a human being, is what really probably concerns me the most in the theater, and this was an attack of that nature," McKenzie said. "We are still trying to determine the attribution of that attack. We recovered part of it. We got good people looking at it, and we'll eventually know where it came from."

Kirby stressed in his statement that Biden ordered the attacks in self-defense, an obligation the president has under the U.S. Constitution. It's an important distinction as Congress has moved to repeal the nearly two-decade-old war resolution that paved the way for the U.S. military invasion of Iraq.

"As demonstrated by this evening's strikes, President Biden has been clear that he will act to protect U.S. personnel," Kirby said. "Given the ongoing series of attacks by Iran-backed groups targeting U.S. interests in Iraq, the President directed further military action to disrupt and deter such attacks."

The attacks were designed as a deterrent against the militias that would avoid further escalation, Kirby said.

In January 2020, then-President Donald Trump ordered the killing of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad. Iran retaliated with missile strikes on a U.S. base in western Iraq, wounding dozens of troops.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden orders airstrikes in Syria, Iraq on Iranian-backed militias

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U.S. military airstrikes target militias backed by Iran in ...

WASHINGTON The United States carried out airstrikes early Monday morning in Iraq and Syria against two Iranian-backed militias that the Pentagon said had conducted drone strikes against American personnel in Iraq in recent weeks, the Defense Department said.

At President Bidens direction, U.S. military forces earlier this evening conducted defensive precision airstrikes against facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups in the Iraq-Syria border region, the Pentagon spokesman, John F. Kirby, said in a statement.

Mr. Kirby said the facilities were used by Iranian-backed militias, including Kataib Hezbollah and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, to store arms and ammunition for carrying out attacks against places where Americans were located in Iraq. There were no immediate reports of casualties but a military after-action review is ongoing, Pentagon officials said.

The strikes were the second time that Mr. Biden has ordered the use of force in the region. The United States carried out airstrikes in eastern Syria in late February against buildings belonging to what the Pentagon said were Iran-backed militias responsible for attacks against American and allied personnel in Iraq.

The latest strikes were carried out by U.S. Air Force fighter-bombers based in the region.

Pentagon planners have been gathering information for weeks on the sites and militia networks that use them, American officials said on Sunday. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefed Mr. Biden on attack options early last week, and Mr. Biden approved striking the three targets, the officials said.

The strikes were carried out a little more than a week after Iran elected a hard-liner, Ebrahim Raisi, as its next president.

The military action also came as the negotiations intended to bring the United States and Tehran back into compliance with an international nuclear accord have reached a crucial juncture. President Donald J. Trump pulled the United States out of the accord in 2018, and Mr. Biden has been seeking to revive it.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken discussed the negotiations on the nuclear deal with Israels foreign minister, Yair Lapid, who said Israel had serious reservations about the accord, which would ease sanctions on Iran in return for limits on its nuclear program.

Earlier this month, the Biden administration blocked access to myriad websites linked to Iran after the nation held a presidential vote to install Mr. Raisi, a close ally of the clerical governments supreme leader, as its top elected official.

Pressure has been building for weeks from Democrats and Republicans in Congress, and from some of Mr. Bidens top advisers and commanders, to retaliate against the threat posed by the drones to American diplomats and the 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq who are training and advising Iraqi forces.

At least five times since April, the Iranian-backed militias have used small, explosive-laden drones that divebomb and crash into their targets in late-night attacks on Iraqi bases including those used by the C.I.A. and U.S. Special Operations units, according to American officials. So far, no Americans have been hurt in the attacks, but officials worry about the precision of the drones, also called unmanned aerial vehicles, or U.A.V.s.

The drones are part of a rapidly evolving threat from Iranian proxies in Iraq, with militia forces specialized in operating more sophisticated weaponry hitting some of the most sensitive American targets in attacks that evaded U.S. defenses.

Iran weakened by years of harsh economic sanctions is using its proxy militias in Iraq to step up pressure on the United States and other world powers to negotiate an easing of those sanctions as part of a possible revival of the 2015 nuclear deal. Iraqi and American officials say Iran has devised the drone attacks to minimize casualties to avoid prompting U.S. retaliation.

American officials said the strikes against two targets in eastern Syria and a third just across the border in Iraq were carried out about 1 a.m. Monday local time by a mix of Air Force F-16s and F-15Es based in the region.

The fighter-bombers dropped multiple bombs 500-pound and 2,000-pound satellite-guided munitions on each of the three structures. American officials said the militias used the sites targeted in Syria mainly for storage and logistics purposes; the site hit in Iraq was used to launch and recover the armed drones, which officials said were either made in Iran or used Iranian technology.

Mr. Kirby and other administration officials characterized the strikes as defensive, but leading lawmakers demanded more details on Sunday.

Congress must be briefed on these airstrikes without delay, said Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, who has led the fight to limit presidential war powers for a decade from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. If the strikes were against militias that were using U.A.V.s to attack American personnel, that would be a conventional self-defense action that is justified. But we need to know more.

Michael P. Mulroy, a former C.I.A. officer and top Middle East policy official at the Pentagon, has warned that with the technology provided by Irans Quds Force the foreign-facing arm of Irans security apparatus the drones are rapidly becoming more sophisticated at a relatively low cost.

This action should send a message to Iran that it cannot hide behind its proxy forces to attack the United States and our Iraqi partners, Mr. Mulroy said on Sunday.

But Mr. Bidens top aides have also said they want to avoid the angry rhetorical jabs and tit-for-tat threats that Mr. Trump often engaged in with Iran and its proxies in Iraq, and avoid escalating tensions with Tehran at a time when the White House is trying to nail down the nuclear deal.

The airstrikes in February against the same militias were also a relatively small, carefully calibrated military response: seven 500-pound bombs dropped on a small cluster of buildings at an unofficial crossing at the Syria-Iraq border used to smuggle across weapons and fighters.

Those earlier strikes were just over the border in Syria to avoid diplomatic blowback to the Iraqi government. The same calculus influenced the planning for the strike on Monday two of the three targets were in Syria along the Iraqi border, and the third was just inside Iraqi territory. The strikes took place early Monday in part to avoid any civilian casualties, officials said.

The United States took necessary, appropriate and deliberate action designed to limit the risk of escalation but also to send a clear and unambiguous deterrent message, Mr. Kirby said.

How the militias and Iran will respond is unclear, and American officials said the relatively small set of airstrikes were unlikely to stop the militia attacks completely. After the February strikes, there was a lull in militia activity against American locations for several weeks, but then an even more dangerous threat emerged: the small armed drones.

Jennifer Steinhauer, Julian Barnes and John Ismay contributed reporting.

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