BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq on Monday celebrated the anniversary of its costly victory over ISIS, which has lost virtually all the territory it once held but still carries out sporadic attacks. The government declared victory last December after a grueling three-year war in which tens of thousands of people were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced. Checkpoints in the capital were decorated with Iraqi flags and balloons, as security forces patrolled the streets playing patriotic music. The group abducted thousands of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority and forced them into sexual slavery. ISIS still holds a small pocket of territory in Syria, near the Iraqi border.

Source: Egypt Independent December 10, 2018 10:52 UTC