EXPLAINER
Did Tony Blair influence trial of UK soldiers accused of killing Iraqi man?
Government files suggest former UK prime minister pressured officials to prevent soldiers being tried in civil courts.
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EXPLAINER
The Abu Ghraib abuse scandal 20 years on: What redress for victims?
Two decades since images of Iraqi men being abused by US soldiers shocked the world, victims still seeking justice.
![Iraqi prisoners wait to be released at Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad, on June 23, 2006 [Wathiq Khuzaie/Pool/Reuters]](/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2006-06-23T120000Z_1713980281_GM1DSWWRGRAA_RTRMADP_3_IRAQ-PRISONERS-1714135528.jpg?resize=770%2C513&quality=80)
Iraq slams US strikes that killed eight pro-Iran fighters
Baghdad denounces the strikes as a breach of its ‘sovereignty’.
US has failed to compensate tortured victims of its Iraq prisons: HRW
The US has failed to redress Iraqis who suffered from systemic torture and abuse in its prisons during the invasion.
The Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Mosul, Michaeel Najeeb, holds an ancient Christian codex in Syriac at the Eastern Manuscript Digitisation Centre (CNMO) in Erbil, the capital of Iraq's autonomous northern Kurdish region. [Safin Hamid/AFP]
A boy looks at a sign written in Syriac at the Ashurbanipal Syriac School in Iraq's predominantly Christian town of Qaraqosh, in Nineveh province. [Waleed Al-Khalid/AFP]
Syriac language teacher Salah Sarkis writes on a whiteboard as he gives a class at the Ashurbanipal Syriac School in the town of Qaraqosh. [Waleed Al-Khalid/AFP]
Syriac is taught at about 265 schools across Iraq, according to Imad Salem Jajjo, who is responsible for Syriac education within the education ministry. [Waleed Al-Khalid/AFP]
Mariam Ashur, right, and Mariam Albert, left, presenters of a programme on al-Syriania, stand with channel director Jack Anwia in a studio in Baghdad. [Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP]
Iraq's government launched the al-Syriania television channel in April 2023 to help keep the language alive. It has about 40 staff and offers a variety of programming, from cinema to art and history. [Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP]
Artist and museum curator Saliwa Shamoun Abba cleans a Syriac-inscribed plaque about the history of the Syriac Museum, in Qaraqosh. [Waleed Al-Khalid/AFP]
A Syriac language Bible on display at the Syriac Museum in Qaraqosh. [Waleed Al-Khalid/AFP]
Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Mosul Michaeel Najeeb retrieves an old Christian book at the Eastern Manuscript Digitisation Centre (CNMO) in Erbil. [Safin Hamid/AFP]
Archbishop Michaeel Najeeb looks through an old Christian codex in Syriac. [Safin Hamid/AFP]
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THE BIG QUESTION
Ukraine war: Did Putin learn from Bush’s Iraq horrors?
From Wagner’s crimes to the UN’s role, the Iraq invasion offered a preview of the Ukraine war. But not all is the same.
Twenty years after the US invasion, where are Iraq’s antiquities?
Thousands of artefacts are being shipped back to Iraq, but many more were taken during the post-invasion looting.
Iraq war, 20 years on: Visualising the impact of the invasion
The horrors of war, its long legacy, and its lost lives and heritage haunt Iraq two decades after the US invasion.
Iraqi refugee women in Jordan sew up a storm, and a future
Iraqi refugee women in Jordan are making and selling clothes through a project started by Italian priests and designers.
Iraqis born in 2003 reflect on a life that began with war
They want a better life, they want to leave, they want peace. Young Iraqis on how the 2003 Iraq war shaped their lives.
Archbishop Najib Mikhael Moussa, second from left, head of the Chaldean Diocese of Mosul and Aqra, with Bishop Paul Thabet Habib Yousif Al Mekko, right, pastor of the Chaldean Diocese of Alquoch, holding mass on Sunday. [Ismael Adnan/Al Jazeera]
Archbishop Najib Mikhael Moussa gives communion to a woman during mass at Deir Mar Mikhael, northwest of Mosul. The monastery, which is named after its builder, dates back to the fourth century. [Ismael Adnan/Al Jazeera]
"For 20 years, we have lived with all the events, including killings, kidnappings, and explosions," Hamid Tuzi said. The congregation was very happy and relieved to hold a mass again at Deir Mar Mikhael. [Ismael Adnan/Al Jazeera]
"Muslims used to share our joys and sorrows, we were brothers and still are. The monastery guard is Muslim. When we celebrated Mass two days ago, the residents of the area welcomed us very much," Ezzat Sami told Al Jazeera. [Ismael Adnan/Al Jazeera]
The monastery was last restored in 1982, according to Moussa. Nuns pray during a mass commemorating the patron saint at Deir Mar Mikhael. [Ismael Adnan/Al Jazeera]
"This liturgy will be the beginning of the reconstruction of the monastery in the near future and the return of prayers to it with donations from the church's sons and believers," Archbishop Najib Mikhael Moussa, centre, said. [Ismael Adnan/Al Jazeera]
The damaged altar is seen. A number of churches are now being reconstructed by UNESCO and with the support of the UAE, other churches are being rebuilt through efforts and donations of the congregation. [Ismael Adnan/Al Jazeera]
"ISIL looted all the property of the monastery and deliberately vandalised and distorted it with graffiti. The monastery was also bombed by planes because ISIL was sheltering in it and using it to store weapons and manufacture explosives," Moussa told Al Jazeera. [Ismael Adnan/Al Jazeera]
"I remember the last time we came to the monastery before the fall of Iraq in the hands of the US. We used to come every year at the beginning of spring. We would attend mass then we'd picnic. We'd gather in the monastery's yard. We would bring food with us and stay till the sun set," Ezzat Sami told Al Jazeera. [Ismael Adnan/Al Jazeera]
Nuns inspect damaged parts of Deir Mar Mikhael. [Ismael Adnan/Al Jazeera]
"The area where the monastery sits was known to the Mosulites as 'Hawi al-Kanisa' in reference to it [having been] a church, hundreds of years ago," Archbishop Najib Mikhael Moussa told Al Jazeera. [Ismael Adnan/Al Jazeera]
Since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the residents of Mosul have lived in insecurity. In June 2014, the city was taken by the ISIL armed group till July 2017. But even after, Mosulites suffered scattered attacks that added to the feeling of being unsafe. [Ismael Adnan/Al Jazeera]
When ISIL controlled Mosul, many churches and monasteries were destroyed and many are still damaged, despite it being six years since the city's liberation. [Ismael Adnan/Al Jazeera]
Archbishop Najib Mikhael Moussa shows Al Jazeera around the monastery. Behind him is an inscription that reads "God is great" in Arabic. [Ismael Adnan/Al Jazeera]
Six years after Mosul's liberation, only 50 families have returned out of 50,000 Christians who lived there before. Most stayed away because their homes and churches were destroyed. But some Christians go there daily from the Kurdish regions to work or study. [Ismael Adnan/Al Jazeera]
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