Anbar

Ankara and Baghdad have signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at facilitating the voluntary return of Iraqi citizens from Türkiye, according to the Turkish Interior Ministry.

Iraqi merchant Mohamed has never seen such a grim tourist season: Years of drought have shrunken the majestic Lake Habbaniyah, keeping away the holidaymakers who once flocked there during summer

"The last two years, there was some activity, but now there's no more water," said 35-year-old Mohamed, asking to be identified by his first name only.

Turkish police detained 11 suspects allegedly linked to the ISIL terror group in the Aegean Balıkesir province, security sources said on Dec. 27.

The detentions came after prosecutors in Balıkesir issued detention warrants for their suspected terror activities in Iraq's western Anbar province, said sources who asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

 Iraqi security forces are forcibly returning civilians from refugee camps to unsafe areas in the predominantly Sunni Anbar province, exposing them to death from booby-traps or acts of vigilantism, refugees and aid workers say, quoted by Reuters. 

Islamic State militants attacked on Wednesday several positions held by Iraqi forces in Anbar province, west of Baghdad, killing at least 7 soldiers and wounding 16, according to a preliminary toll from security sources, quoted by Reuters. 

Iraqi forces are reported to have launched an operation to recapture the last stronghold of so-called Islamic State in the country's western desert, reported BBC.

A military source told the BBC that soldiers, Anbar provincial police and Sunni Arab tribal fighters began moving on the town of Ana on Tuesday morning.

Iraqi forces have retaken almost all of Tal Afar, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's (ISIL) stronghold in the country's northwest, the Iraqi military said on Aug. 27.

On the front lines, the jagged teeth of a young soldier’s bulldozer mark the beginning of Iraq’s territory and the end of the Islamic State’s.

A suicide attack in an oasis town south of Baghdad killed eight people and wounded at least six on Monday, Iraqi officials said.
The attack in Ain al-Tamer involved six suicide bombers, some of whom may have been killed by security forces before they could blow themselves up.

"Ten years ago, the Americans helped Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province west of Baghdad form the 'Awakening' movement to defeat a previous incarnation of violent fundamentalist Islam - al-Qaeda in Iraq.