Iraq carnage

Five months on, what was once Iraq’s second-largest city remains a mass grave after its recapture from ISIS, with the overwhelming smell of decay befouling the air.

Bomb components, suicide vests, drones and even swords used in public beheadings, RT has been granted exclusive access to a ‘museum’ of trophies seized from ISIS terrorists by a Shia paramilitary group during Iraq’s liberation.

The Royal Australian Air Force is withdrawing its jets from anti-terrorist missions in Iraq and Syria, shifting its focus to “support” and provide “counter-terrorism services” to the Iraqi Security Forces.

Decades of instability and weakened security forces make Afghanistan one of the most probable new IS destinations after the terrorist group's defeat in Syria and Iraq, Nikita Mendkovich, political analyst at the Russian International Affairs Council, told RT.

On a sandstorm-swept morning in Baghdad earlier last week, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the legendary deputy leader of Hashd al-Shaabi, a.k.a. People Mobilization Units (PMUs) and the actual mastermind of numerous ground battles against ISIS/Daesh, met a small number of independent foreign journalists and analysts.

The US has failed to back the Kurds, who were their close allies in the fight against ISIS terrorists, and has allowed Baghdad to use American weapons in its attack on Kurdistan, Masoud Barzani, the Iraqi Kurdish President, has said after resigning his post.