The renovated Al-Mutanabbi Street is the historic heart of the book trade and an outlet for writers and intellectuals in the Iraqi capital (Photo: Sabah Arar/AFP)
A picture shows bystanders near a destroyed car in the southern Iraqi city of Basra after at least four civilians were killed and four more wounded in a motorcycle bombing near a hospital, Dec. 7, 2021. (Photo: Hussein Faleh/AFP)
Iraqi calligrapher Wael Ramadan uses a stylus to produce a sample of Arabic calligraphy at his workshop in al-Ashar district of Iraq's southern city of Basra, Dec. 21, 2021. (Photo: Hussein Faleh/AFP)
Hoshyar Zebari, a high-level KDP official, (right) greets Nouri al-Maliki, the State of Law Secretary General and leader of Coordination Framework in Erbil, Dec. 22, 2021. (Photo: Erbil Governorate)
Minister of Communication Arkan Al-Shaibani holding a press conference in Baghdad to brief reporters on the Iraqi Cabinet's meeting, Dec. 21, 2021. (Photo: Iraqi Government Twitter account)
Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani (right) during a meeting with Iranian Ambassador to Iraq Iraj Masjed, Dec. 21, 2021. (Photo: Kurdistan Region Presidency)
Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi stands (center) while an Iraqi official signs a deal for the construction of new schools with a Chinese company official in Baghdad, Dec. 16, 2021. (Photo: Iraqi Government)
A fragment of an artefact bearing cuneiform inscriptions being reconstructed and reassembled at the Mosul Museum, Dec. 14, 2021. (Photo: Zaid al-Obeidi/AFP)
