(Reuters photo)KUWAIT: Rebuilding Iraq after three years of war with Islamic State will cost $88.2 billion, with housing a particularly urgent priority, Iraqi officials told an international conference on Monday. Iraq declared victory over Islamic State in December, having taken back all the territory captured by the militants in 2014 and 2015. About $22 billion will be required in the short term and another $66 billion in the medium term, the director-general of the country’s planning ministry, Qusay Adulfattah, told the conference, without indicating any timeframe. (Video YouTube/Al Jazeera English)The United States, which leads an international coalition that provided Iraq with key air support in the fight against Islamic State, does not plan to pledge any money at the Kuwait conference, US officials said. A US-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein and was followed by years of insurgency, sectarian bloodletting between Sunnis and Shi‘ites, as well as ethnic tensions between the Arabs and Kurds, all before Islamic State emerged in 2014.

Source: Bangkok Post February 12, 2018 09:45 UTC