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A Shiite flag flies over a destroyed checkpoint at the entrance of Balad, Iraq, on Saturday. (Hadi Mizban, AP)

RAWASHID, Iraq Sunni residents of this tiny village north of Baghdad are all gone. Their homes now have Shiite graffiti scrawled on the walls. Shiite banners, many emblazoned with images of revered saints, are hoisted on the roofs.

The only people here now are Shiite fighters, who nearly two weeks ago helped Iraqi forces wrest the town from the Islamic State. Outside one of the homes the fighters have occupied, their leader sat with his men on a recent day, warming themselves by a fire, where tea brewed.

He made it clear: They have no intention of allowing the Sunnis back, accusing them of supporting the extremists.

"If we allow the residents of this village to return to their homes, they will do it all over again to us," said Adnan Hassan, 59.

The militants used the village to fire mortars at the nearby, mainly Shiite city of Balad and they still hold villages only a few miles away.

"These are our lands. They were taken away from us centuries ago," he said.

Hassan's claim of Shiite ownership of the lands is tenuous at best. But his comments expose a grim side of Iraq's fight against the Sunni militants of the Islamic State group: The war is being used by Shiite militiamen to change the demographics of Sunni areas, to solidify Shiite control. The practice appears mostly focused on Sunni areas astride roads leading to important Shiite shrines to the north and south of the capital, Baghdad.

"What we are dealing with here is a real attempt at demographic change, coupled with blatant abuses," Sunni politician Hamed al-Mutlaq said. "It is now extremely difficult for the Sunnis to return to their homes" not because their homes have been destroyed, he added. "It is genuine fear that is stopping them."

All along the highway from Baghdad to Balad, the depopulation is clear along with the sectarian nature of the fight.

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Iraq's battle against extremist becomes a sectarian purge

Ayman Oghanna for The New York Times American military personnel, recently deployed to Iraq, found remnants of the previous United States military presence, mostly untouched since their comrades left Camp Taji three years earlier.

CAMP TAJI, Iraq The calendar on the wall reads November 2011.

On the ground is a half-filled tin of Copenhagen smokeless tobacco. Scattered here and there are bottles of Gatorade, cans of Rip It energy drinks, poker chips, Monopoly money and razor blades.

Stenciled on a wall is a punchy soldiers slogan: I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. Taped on another is a note of encouragement from a Boy Scout troop back home: You are our hero and your commitment to freedom is honorable.

There is even a jar of salsa still in the fridge.

When the American troops left Iraq three years ago, they left behind a fragile country that collapsed into civil war. They also left behind the detritus of soldiers lives that, in the ensuing years, was left untouched, frozen in time.

Now that American forces, in much smaller numbers, are returning to help the Iraqis confront the extremists of the Islamic State, they have found themselves reoccupying some of their old places. And they are excavating what feels like a slowly decaying time capsule as they discover the things they left behind.

When the Americans left, they turned over their bases to the Iraqis. But here at Taji, aside from some buildings that were clearly ransacked and probably looted of anything valuable, many of the spaces, now covered in a thick coat of dust, were left alone.

One soldier said he found pinups from Maxim, a mens magazine, still on the walls. And the last copies of Stars and Stripes, the armed forces newspaper, delivered just before the American departure, are still scattered about the floor of one of the bathrooms. The score from an NFL playoff game in 2011, now considered a classic upset, is painted across an awning: Saints 36, Seahawks 41.

At Taji, about 20 miles north of Baghdad and once home to a sprawling American air base, even the street signs the Americans posted are still up. Separating a patch of housing units from the cavernous aircraft hangars is the corner of Longhorn Avenue and 46th Street.

Read more here:
Back in Iraq, Unearthing Things Their Brethren Carried

RAWASHID, Iraq- Sunni residents of this tiny village north of Baghdad are all gone. Their homes now have Shiite graffiti scrawled on the walls. Shiite banners, many emblazoned with images of revered saints, are hoisted on the roofs.

The only people here now are Shiite fighters, who nearly two weeks ago helped Iraqi forces wrest the town from the Islamic State group. Outside one of the homes the fighters have occupied, their leader sat with his men on a recent day, warming themselves by a fire where tea brewed.

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Iraq's Shiite militiamen cleansing retaken villages

KOBANE , Iraq, Jan. 6 (UPI) -- The besieged city of Kobane, Syria, is now 80 percent controlled by Kurdish fighters, activists said Tuesday.

Iraqi and Syrian Kurdish troops have been fighting the Islamic State since the end of October, working to repel IS forces which advanced on Kobane, on the border between Turkey and Syria, and overran most of the city in September. U.S.-led airstrikes and fresh reinforcements have pushed IS back far enough that the city's security district and police headquarters have been retaken by the Kurds, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

U.S. Central Command reported eight airstrikes Sunday on Kobane which destroyed 11 IS positions. The push for the security district by Kurdish fighters, known as the People's Protection Units (YPG), began Sunday with numerous clashes in the streets. Kobane official Idriss Nassan said the IS was confined to eastern districts of the city.

"Hopefully within days the (YPG) units will be in control of the whole city," he said. "The advance has become faster and the air strikes are more intense."

Another group of Iraqi Kurdish troops, known as Peshmerga, will arrive in Kobane soon, Cabba Yaver, Secretary General of Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government's Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs said.

"Our Peshmerga fighters in Kobane are tired. We will send the third round of troops consisting of 156 new fighters."

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Key parts of Kobane, Iraq, seized by Kurdish troops

Iraq fighting keeps starling flocks away
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Iraq fighting keeps starling flocks away - Video