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BAGHDAD Islamic State group militants have blocked the area around a highly symbolic mosque in Mosul's Old City where the group's leader made his first and only public appearance in 2014, a resident said Thursday. The move came as U.S.-backed Iraqi forces are pushing to recapture the city's remaining pockets. The militants have ordered families living near al-Nuri mosque also known as the Great Mosque to leave their houses and sealed all the roads leading to it, said the resident who lives in the ISIS-held sections of Mosul. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi delivered a Friday sermon in al-Nuri mosque in 2014 after IS seized almost a third of Iraq and declared an Islamic "caliphate" on territory it controlled in Iraq and neighboring Syria. The iconic 840-year-old "Crooked Minaret," which leans somewhat like Italy's Tower of Pisa, survived destruction by ISIS militants as residents formed a human chain to protect it when the militants came to blow it up. The extremists demolished dozens of historic and archaeological sites in and around Mosul, saying they promote idolatry. "The militants are not moving in groups anymore, we see one or two from time to time in the streets as a majority of them are moving through the houses, using the holes they made in the walls," he told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear for his safety. According to U.N. estimates, more than 100,000 people are still trapped in their houses in ISIS-held areas. Mosul's Old City is an ancient district of narrow alleyways and tightly packed homes, two main challenges to security forces. "We are dying slowly with no water and no food," the resident said of the deteriorated situation in their areas. Meanwhile on Thursday, the U.N. special mission to Iraq said violence killed at least 354 civilians and wounded 470 others in Iraq last month. Of those, there were 160 civilians killed and 52 wounded in Nineveh province, where Mosul is provincial capital.

The Iraqi government last October launched a wide-scale military offensive to recapture Mosul and the surrounding areas, with various Iraqi military, police and paramilitary forces taking part in the operation. The city's eastern half was declared liberated in January, and the push for the city's western section, separated from the east by the Tigris River, began the following month. Since then, the IS hold on Mosul has shrunk to just a handful of neighborhoods in and around the Old City district.

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In Iraq, ISIS seals off area around symbolic mosque in Mosul - Military Times

Iraqis celebrate after the country's national soccer team beat Saudi Arabia in the Asian Cup final on July 29, 2007. Ali Yussef / AFP/Getty Images

"Winning that tournament suddenly brought all Iraqis together," said Kamel Zugheir, a spokesman for the Iraqi Football Federation. "Those people ... celebrated as Iraqis, not as Sunnis or Shiites. They sent a message to officials that it is easy to bring all Iraqis to stand side by side as it was easy to create problems among them."

Those celebrations came after decades of political and sporting isolation. Iraq's national team wasn't allowed to play at home from 1980 to 2003, when the country was at war with neighboring Iran and then was under international economic sanctions.

World soccer officials extended the ban after the U.S. invasion removed Saddam from power and triggered chaos and then a civil war.

However, games in the northern and relatively safe Kurdish city of Erbil were allowed.

Since 2009, Iraq was given two chances to show that it could host international matches, but violence that once again swept the country in recent years meant international officials pulled permission once more.

The drama surrounding Iraq's national team has played out against the country's greater national tragedy.

Since the fall of Saddam, about 3 million Iraqis have been displaced by violence, and according to the International Organization for Migration.

It isn't known how many Iraqis were killed in the eight years after the U.S. invasion, although estimates have put the number between 112,000 and around 500,000.

Mahmood Abed. NBC News

Soccer fan Mahmood Abed, 18, who sells sunglasses on the streets of Baghdad, could only dream of watching his national team play in person.

"I was raised among a family that used to go to watch the Iraqi team in Iraqi stadiums," Abed told NBC News. "My father always recalls those memories and tells me about what a wonderful feeling it was to watch your team playing in front of you."

He was age 8 at the outbreak of the civil war, which was driven by divisions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.

Nevertheless, Abed said, he doesn't make any religious distinction among his countrymen. And that feeling led directly to his love of soccer.

"When I watch a match in the TV for our national team, I do not ask if this player or that is a Sunni or a Shiite," he said. "I only care about the results."

An NBC News producer reported from Baghdad. F. Brinley Bruton reported from London.

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Iraq's National Soccer Team Aims to Prove to ISIS 'That Nothing Can ... - NBCNews.com

Recent advances suggest Iran-backed Iraqi militias could join pro-government forces in Syria battling ISIS. While both sides may want this to happen, there is still much ground to be covered before cross-border coordination would befeasible.

Militia fighters posed for a picture on the Iraqi side of the Syrian-Iraqi border. Iraqs Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) reached the Syrian frontier on May 29, 2017

BEIRUT Iraqs national security adviser met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last month to explore the prospect of direct military cooperation between their forces in the fight against the so-called Islamic State(ISIS).

Iraqi warplanes have been bombing ISIS positions in Syria since February, and it remains unclear what bolstered military cooperation on both sides of the border couldentail.

However, over the past two weeks, Iranian proxies in both Syria and Iraq made significant advances toward their respective sides of the border, suggesting an intent to join forces to battle ISIS in Syria a move that could give Assad unprecedented leverage in an upcoming offensive on the militant-held eastern city of DeirEzzor.

The prospect of joining forces became more likely on Monday after the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an Iranian-backed Shiite militia working with the Iraqi army to fight ISIS, reached the Syrianborder.

While recent gains sparked a conversation about cooperation, it is likely to be weeks perhaps months before the Iran-backed forces, who report to the governments in Damascus and Baghdad, could actually link up across thefrontier.

Following Mondays advance in Iraq, a PMF spokesman said his forces are ready to march into Syria to battle the militants, but added that they would need permission from the Iraqi and Syrian governments before they could doso.

PMF Deputy Commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, speaking to Iraqi al-Ahad TV, called the cross-border cooperation a natural right for Iraqi military forces, including the PMF to defend the security of Iraq from the sources of terrorism outside itsborder.

On the other side of the frontier, Iranian proxies in Syria have been advancing toward the Iraqi border on two fronts for more than a couple of weeks. Tehran-backed paramilitary groups began mobilizing around a U.S. training camp for anti-ISIS rebels in the southern Syrian town of Tanf, near the Iraqi border, in mid May a move that has put Assads allies in close confrontation with U.S.-backed forces on theground.

Videos released on social media purported to show fighters from the Iraqi Imam Ali Brigade preparing for the battle on Tanf. Other Iranian-backed Iraqi militias such as Harakat al-Abdal and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada are also operating in the area, according to Phillip Smyth, a researcher at the University of Maryland who focuses on Shiite militarism in the MiddleEast.

Additionally, hundreds of fighters from the Lebanese Hezbollah have reportedly deployed to fight U.S.-backed rebels in Tanf, according to reports by Fars News Agency, which is affiliated with Irans Revolutionary GuardCorps.

On the second front, Syrian troops and affiliated forces are pushing northeast from the ancient town of Palmyra toward the ISIS-controlled crossroads of Sukhna, which lies more than 124 km (77 miles) west of the militants new de facto capital Deir Ezzor. They are also pushing southeast of Palmyra toward the Iraqi border, into areas currently held byISIS.

It is necessary to understand that this border is very important to the Syrian regime and its allies, Fabrice Balanche, a visiting fellow at The Washington Institute, told Syria Deeply over Skype, explaining that control over the frontier would give Assad a boost against ISIS, by isolating the group into two separate pockets across the border and cutting off its supply lines fromIraq.

The influx of Iranian-backed paramilitaries into Syria from Iraq would also bolster the Syrian governments combat power as it pushes toward the eastern ISIS stronghold of Deir Ezzor, giving the Assad regime unprecedented leverage in the fight against the militantgroup.

According to Balanche, a ground link across the border is also especially important for Tehran, since it would provide a vital supply route for Iranian weapons into Syria and is crucial to Iranian plans to construct a ground corridor from Tehran all the way to the Mediterraneancoast.

Though significant, recent gains by both Syrian and Iraqi paramilitaries near the border do not yet allow Iranian-backed forces in Syria and Iraq to join ranks. We are still at the beginning of a process that began only one month ago, Balanchesaid.

Pro-government forces and the PMF can not link up in border positions captured by the Iraqi paramilitary group earlier this week, since these areas lie adjacent to Kurdish-held territory in northeastSyria.

The Syrian Democratic Forces, a U.S.-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters which controls the region, will not allow pro-government forces to enter its territories nor will it make way for Iraqi paramilitaries to use Hassakeh as a gateway into the rest of thecountry.

An SDF commander said Wednesday that his forces would fight Iraqi Shia militants if they attempted to enter territory they controlled in Syria. If Hashd forces attempt to enter our areas, our forces [SDF] will fight them, Talal Silo said, referring to thePMF.

On the Tanf front, the presence of U.S.-backed rebels known as Jaysh Maghawir al-Thawra, as well as U.S. and British Special Forces, who are preparing opposition groups for upcoming battles against ISIS, has complicated attempts to reach theborder.

U.S. warplanes carried out a series of attacks on a convoy of Iranian-backed paramilitary groups, including the Imam Ali Brigades, approaching the base on May 18, forcing pro-government militias to retreat north toward the Zaza checkpoint and Sabaa Biyar, a small town near the Damascus-Baghdadhighway.

U.S.-coalition warplanes also dropped leaflets in the Tanf region vowing to retaliate against any future government advances against itsforces.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based monitoring group, the leaflets said: Any moves towards al-Tanf is considered hostile and we will defend our forces You are within the safe area, leave this areanow.

The U.S. is also bolstering its combat power in southern Syria to fend off the threat of Assads Iran-backed allies, a spokesman of the U.S.-led coalition saidThursday.

In effect, the U.S. has created a buffer-zone between the Iraqi and Syrian borders, in a move that some claim is part of Washingtons effort to carve out an area of influence in southernSyria.

This leaves pro-government forces with only the southeastern route from Palmyra toward border areas roughly 100 km northeast of Tanf, where Iranian-backed groups could link up with PMF forces traversing down the frontier toward areas in Iraqs western Anbar province. However, this push will likely take time and effort, especially since ISIS still has forces deployed across the vast desert territory separating pro-government forces and the Iraqiborder.

The viability of linking up across the border, its still somewhat off, Aymenn Tamimi, a research fellow at the Middle East Forum, a U.S.-based think-tank, told Syria Deeply. A real linkup would require much more substantial gains for the regime and its allies pushingeast.

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Why Iran-Backed Forces in Iraq and Syria Can't Link Up Yet - News Deeply

Zynab Al Harbiya was killed by a suicide bomber near a Baghdad ice-cream parlour.

The father of a 12-year-old Melbourne girl who died in a car bomb explosion in Baghdad has spoken of his grief upon seeing her body, calling Islamic State attackers monsters who had killed a little girl with a big heart.

Zynab Al Harbiya, a year seven student from Melbournes Sirius College, was killed by a suicide bomber near an ice-cream shop in the Iraqi capital about midnight local time on Tuesday.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, which killed 17 people including Zynab and injured 32, and another car bomb outside the public pension office in Shawaka, which killed 14 people and injured at least 17. The attacks came just days into the holy month of Ramadan.

Zynab and her family were visiting Baghdad from Australia to see her sick grandfather and she was on her way to break fast with her cousins at the ice-cream parlour when the bomb went off.

Her father, Khalid Al Harbiya, was five hours south in Al Nasiriya and told Fairfax Media he had driven back to Baghdad not knowing whether his family was alive. He saw his daughters body in the morgue of the neurosurgery teaching hospital.

I started banging on my head when I saw. It was so traumatic, he told Fairfax. May God avenge us from Daesh.

He added: Normally your child survives you, not the other way around.

He had last spoken to Zynab the day before when she asked if she could buy a new iPhone.

It was such a brutal death. She was just a little girl, what has she ever done to anyone? She was not in the army or a fighter. They are criminals, they have no mercy, no humanity they are monsters.

He said Zynab had strong convictions and was creative. She also had big ambitions.

She wanted to be a lawyer or a teacher or a doctor, he said. She wanted to help people, I swear. She had a big heart.

Harbiya said his wife had gone into shock at Zynabs death and his two sons, Haydar, 10, and Bilal, seven, were distraught.

They wanted to see their sister but we stopped them because the scene is too horrific, he said. They are crying all the time saying we want our sister back.

Harbiya fled Iraq during Saddam Husseins regime and has lived in Australia for 20 years, working as a labourer. Zynab and her brothers were born in Australia.

On Wednesday the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, described the attack as vicious and extended our deepest sympathies to her family, her loved ones, her fellow students at Broadmeadows.

This tragedy underscores the brutality of this terrorist organisation that shows no respect for religion, nationality, sovereignty, borders, no respect for humanity, Bishop said.

Harbiya said he was heartened by support from Australia, which included limited consular support.

We are Muslims being targeted and these terrorists know no difference. We must stand together to fight against Daesh and terrorism.

Zynabs funeral was held in Baghdad on Wednesday, and students at Sirius College prayed for her.

Sirius Colleges principal, Halid Serdar Takimoglu, said she was a passionate and well-loved student, whose death had deeply distressed the school.

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Zynab Al Harbiya's father says girl killed in Iraq had 'big heart' - The Guardian

MSF is continuing to provide medical care, including for trauma, and mother and child care, in areas throughout northern Iraq.

Mosul

Inside Mosul city

MSF opened a 15-bed, 24/7 free-of-charge maternity hospital in Karama, in east Mosul, on the 19 March. Since then, the MSF team made up of both expat and Iraqi midwives and obstetricians has assisted 200 women to give birth safely.

MSF opened a 24/7 emergency room in Al Taheel hospital on 26 March. The team has also set up a surgical unit (with one operating theatre currently running, but a second will soon be online), and a 32-bed post-operative ward in order to provide medium-term care to those suffering from violent trauma injuries in and around Mosul. People with older injuries in need of surgical care, surgical follow up, and other types of surgical issues are also treated in this facility. Since opening, over 330 patients have been received in the emergency room, and 30 surgical interventions have been carried out.

In north-east Mosul, MSF works in a hospital set up inside a former retirement home. The ER opened in February, and has been running 24/7 since 1 March providing emergency, surgery, and maternity services (including caesarean sections), and an in-patient department (IPD) with 50 beds. Since the opening of the hospital until early May, the MSF team has treated 4,376 patients, over half of whom (2,286) were urgent cases, and 93 caesarean sections were performed since the maternity unit opened. As the level of access to healthcare is improving in East Mosul, the hospital has seen a drop in activities in the past weeks, especially in terms of lifesaving medical care. As a result, MSF is re-evaluating the project strategy.

Outside Mosul city

Hammam al-Alil is the closest internally-displaced persons (IDP) camp to the south of Mosul, and is located around 30km south of the current frontline. The town has received a big influx of IDPs from western Mosul since start of the military offensive, with more people arriving every day and settling in different camps in the area, or are sent elsewhere after they are screened by security forces.

MSF opened a field trauma hospital with emergency room, two operating theatres, an ICU/recovery room, and IPD on 16 February; for more than one month this hospital was the closest surgical facility to West Mosul. The emergency room received 2,689 patients from 19 February to 19 May, with more than half of them women and children, and more than two-thirds were war-wounded. So far the team has performed 245 major surgical procedures and 56 minor procedures.

Since 15 April, MSF has been supporting the local Department of Healths primary healthcare centre (PHCC) in Hamman al-Alil, and had already carried out a total of 12,232 consultations by 19 May for both the local population and the IDPs hosted in the community. In the PHCC we perform dressings for wounded patients, including those still being followed up after being discharged from our trauma centre. In Hammam al-Alil, MSF also runs an ambulatory therapeutic feeding centre for children suffering from malnutrition, with a rapidly increasing cohort made up primarily of small babies aged less than six months

MSF is providing long-term post-operative care with rehabilitation and psychosocial support in Al Hamdaniya hospital, in collaboration with Handicap International. Activities started on 15 March and to date, MSF has admitted 189 patients, nearly half of whom were women and children. The facility now has 40 beds in order to respond to the huge need for post-operative care and is almost constantly full, receiving new patients who need post-operative follow-up as soon as those who complete their follow-up are discharged.

In December, MSF opened a 32-bed hospital in Quayyarah, 60 km south of Mosul, with an ER and an operating theatre to provide surgical and emergency medical care. The facility has now been extended to cater for the growing and diversifying needs. The team has treated 6,000 patients in the ER as of 1 May, around 10% of whom were admitted to the in-patient department which currently has a 50 bed capacity. A total of 1,130 surgical interventions have been performed since December 2016 until 1 May. A four-bed intermediate care unit was opened in mid-April to provide care to patients in critical condition, and seven observational beds and two resuscitation beds are also now available.

In March, MSF set-up a 12-bed intensive therapeutic feeding centre (ITFC) in Quayyarah to provide care to children recently displaced from west Mosul or Shirkat region, as well as those from IDP camps in Hammam al-Alil and Quayyarah. The majority of the patients in the ITFC are less than six months old. The centre regularly works over capacity and during one week in late May had three babies per bed.

Since February, MSF has been running a mental health clinic for patients admitted to the hospital, as well as for patients referred from Quayyarah camps. The team includes a psychiatrist, two psychologists, and two psychosocial counsellors.

Camps for displaced people

Following the offensive launched into West Mosul in mid-February, the total population of the four camps west of Erbil hosting internally displaced people from Mosul sharply increased to 80,000 people by the end of March. Soon after, the displaced people started leaving the camps to move in with relatives, or rent houses in retaken areas of East Mosul, and the overall population decreased to approximately 70,000.

Today, mobile MSF teams are providing primary health care, treatment for chronic diseases (mainly diabetes and hypertension), as well as psychological and psychiatric care in two of these camps, Chamakor and M2. Activities in M2 are currently more focused on care for non- communicable diseases, with MSF planning to handover primary health care activities by the end of May. MSF has already handed over the treatment of non-communicable diseases in Debaga camp, given the number of IDPs leaving and starting to return to their homes or moving in with relatives in East Mosul.

A team of a psychiatrist, psychologists, and counsellors is also providing health care to those suffering from moderate to severe mental health conditions. Activities include psychological and psychiatric consultations, group therapy, psychosocial counselling, and child therapy. MSF teams currently provide mental health care across 14 sites, and are always extremely busy.

Since the beginning of the year, the team has carried out more than 15,000 medical consultations and 9,000 mental health consultations in the IDP camps near Mosul.

Hawija

Hawija District, one of the four districts of Kirkuk governorate, remains the second largest territory controlled by Islamic State (IS) in Iraq, but the timeline leading to the military intervention to retake the area is not yet known. Hawija is surrounded by more than 200 rural villages and the entire district combined had an estimated population of 288,000 in June 2014, but a large proportion has now reportedly fled.

In late 2015, increasing numbers of civilians began fleeing the hardship of life under IS and in June 2016, a militia group cut the last trade road, isolating the district from other IS-held territories and from the rest of Iraq. Since then, living conditions have become dire for the estimated 70,000 people remaining in Hawija district. Due to the siege, food is scarce and prices have skyrocketed. Health facilities have been damaged by airstrikes and local looting, and both health workers and medical supplies (drugs, equipment, and materials) are drastically lacking. It is expected that the military offensive will further disrupt access to basic services and worsen the already critical humanitarian situation.

Of the estimated 88,000 IDPs that have reportedly left Hawija since August 2016, around half are displaced within Kirkuk Governorate, where the vast majority live in Kirkuks six IDP camps. A further 30,000 have fled to neighbouring Salah Al-Din governorate. People reported that the main reason for leaving is the lack of food and drinking water.

Since November 2016, MSF has been operating two mobile clinics at Maktab Khalid checkpoint and at Debes screening site to respond to the immediate needs of those fleeing Hawija. Primary health care, first aid, psychological trauma care, and referrals to Kirkuk hospital ER are being provided. MSF has also renovated the water and sanitation facilities in the two sites and distributes water. In Daquq IDP Camp, MSF runs a non-communicable diseases clinic and mental health activities. MSF also supports the emergency rooms of the two main Kirkuk hospitals and has conducted emergency response workshops including specific training on how to deal with injuries to the abdomen and chest, as well as on advanced trauma responses in preparation for mass casualties which may arrive as a result of any future Hawija offensive.

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Iraq: Crisis Update northern Iraq, June 2017 - ReliefWeb