Battle with IS leaves melting pot Iraq town in ruins
Dilshad Salim stares in disbelief at the devastated ruins of his hometown Bashiqa in northern Iraq several days after Kurdish forces took it back from the Islamic State jihadist group. Once a bustling community on the road leading to Turkey, it was a melting pot of different ethnic groups and beliefs that was famed for […]Dilshad Salim stares in disbelief at the devastated ruins of his hometown Bashiqa in northern Iraq several days after Kurdish forces took it back from the Islamic State jihadist group.
Once a bustling community on the road leading to Turkey, it was a melting pot of different ethnic groups and beliefs that was famed for its olives and local liquor arak.
Now it is a ghost town of mangled buildings and rubble -- flattened by ferocious air bombardments and fighting to reclaim it from the jihadists.
