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It's a truism that the world has grown numb to terrorist attacks outside the West. When the Islamic State set off a car bomb on Tuesday outside a popular ice cream shop in Baghdad, killing 13 people and wounding dozens more, no candlelight vigilstook place in Western cities.No imperial monuments were lit up in Iraqi colors in European capitals. When militants set off a devastating explosion in Kabul's diplomatic enclave on Wednesday, killing at least80 people and injuring hundreds more, no CNN anchor uploaded the flag of Afghanistan on social media. Nopop stars organized solidarity concerts.

Part of the contrast, of course, is the extent to which we are used to hearing these stories. In the global news cycle, a bombing in Baghdad or a Taliban strike in Kabul is like a typhoon in the Pacific or a Sean Spicer gaffe. These things happen. If we pay attention at all, we do so fleetingly,grimace at the calamity and move on.

The difference lies in distance. The capitals of Iraq and Afghanistanare zones of war, their roads made familiar to us only throughyears of U.S. military deployments. In the American consciousness, this is where the killing is supposed to happen.

But easy as it isgloss over death, it's important to recognize life.

On Tuesday in Iraq, hours after the blast, builders were working at the al-Faqma ice-cream parlor, plastering over cracks and repainting walls, noted an editorial in Britain'sGuardian newspaper. By evening the streets and restaurants were full again with families, demonstrating the resilience that was feted in Manchester and is taken for granted in the places that must summon it time and time again.

In shell-shocked Kabul, scene of one of the worst attacks in many years, residents lurched into a new reality. My colleague Pamela Constable reportedon Thursday from the perimeter of the massive blast site as protesters vented their rage and grief at a government that couldn't keep them safe.

Let us turn the silence of suffering into a national voice. We must all come together to stop terrorism from going any further and raise our voices against oppression, a young man with a bullhorn exhorted the crowd.

In the United States, a great deal of attention has been paid to the effect of more than a decade of war on the mental health of American servicemen and women and rightly so. But in Iraq and Afghanistan, whole societies have been traumatized. Millions of childrengrow up amid bombings, displacement and political collapse. Public health workers and aid agencies are still trying to measure the immense psychological toll they may have suffered.

So it's worth considering the depth of courageordinary Afghans and Iraqis must show in the face of daily threats and violence.

There had been many other bombings, some even deadlier. But this time, it felt like the collective burden of a society at war had suddenly become much heavier, Constable wrote after the attack Wednesday.It's a weightthat can't beeasy to carry.

People have an anxious feeling now, like a psychological illness. I feel suspicious if I see someone carrying something, said Gul Rahim, 42, a real estate agent whose office lost all its windows in the blast, speaking to The Washington Post. I was in the jihad [against the Soviet Union], and there were a lot of bombs and rockets. This was much worse.

No group neither the Afghan Taliban nor outfits connected to the Islamic State have asserted responsibility for the attack. As Constable reported, the aftermath has been punctuated by anger at the government of President Ashraf Ghani, which is hobbled by infighting and, like its predecessors, persistent allegations of corruption and incompetence.

In the face of this senseless and cowardly act, the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan is unwavering, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement. The United States stands with the government and the people of Afghanistan and will continue to support their efforts to achieve peace, security, and prosperity. The Pentagon is said to be pushing the White House to authorize a new surge of troops. But peace will require negotiations and a political settlement with the Taliban that Trump has so far shown no interest in championing.

In the meantime, consider the struggles of those already scarred by war. A stunning piece recently published by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism detailed the prevalence of amputees on the front lines of the war against the Taliban.

If I go and sit in my house Taliban will go to my house and kill me,said Kudai Rahm Shakir, a police official in Afghanistan's insurgency-ravagedHelmand province who lost both legs to an improvised explosive device a year ago. This is the only way for me to protect myself and survive. Another police officer deployed not far from Shakir drives a Humvee with no problem. He's missing a leg.

There are people who are in worse condition than I am,he said. I still have one leg.

You can lament their desperation, wonder at the woeful state of Afghanistan's security forces and evencelebrate their resilience. But months from now, will the world still note these acts of courage, or remember the many victims in Kabul and Baghdad the way those slain last week in Manchester will be memorialized?Probably not. And it's more than time for that to change.

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The West is indifferent to Afghanistan and Iraq's world of terror - Washington Post

BAGHDAD Islamic State group militants have blocked the area around a highly symbolic mosque in Mosul's Old City where the group's leader made his first and only public appearance in 2014, a resident said Thursday. The move came as U.S.-backed Iraqi forces are pushing to recapture the city's remaining pockets. The militants have ordered families living near al-Nuri mosque also known as the Great Mosque to leave their houses and sealed all the roads leading to it, said the resident who lives in the ISIS-held sections of Mosul. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi delivered a Friday sermon in al-Nuri mosque in 2014 after IS seized almost a third of Iraq and declared an Islamic "caliphate" on territory it controlled in Iraq and neighboring Syria. The iconic 840-year-old "Crooked Minaret," which leans somewhat like Italy's Tower of Pisa, survived destruction by ISIS militants as residents formed a human chain to protect it when the militants came to blow it up. The extremists demolished dozens of historic and archaeological sites in and around Mosul, saying they promote idolatry. "The militants are not moving in groups anymore, we see one or two from time to time in the streets as a majority of them are moving through the houses, using the holes they made in the walls," he told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear for his safety. According to U.N. estimates, more than 100,000 people are still trapped in their houses in ISIS-held areas. Mosul's Old City is an ancient district of narrow alleyways and tightly packed homes, two main challenges to security forces. "We are dying slowly with no water and no food," the resident said of the deteriorated situation in their areas. Meanwhile on Thursday, the U.N. special mission to Iraq said violence killed at least 354 civilians and wounded 470 others in Iraq last month. Of those, there were 160 civilians killed and 52 wounded in Nineveh province, where Mosul is provincial capital.

The Iraqi government last October launched a wide-scale military offensive to recapture Mosul and the surrounding areas, with various Iraqi military, police and paramilitary forces taking part in the operation. The city's eastern half was declared liberated in January, and the push for the city's western section, separated from the east by the Tigris River, began the following month. Since then, the IS hold on Mosul has shrunk to just a handful of neighborhoods in and around the Old City district.

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In Iraq, ISIS seals off area around symbolic mosque in Mosul - Military Times

Iraqis celebrate after the country's national soccer team beat Saudi Arabia in the Asian Cup final on July 29, 2007. Ali Yussef / AFP/Getty Images

"Winning that tournament suddenly brought all Iraqis together," said Kamel Zugheir, a spokesman for the Iraqi Football Federation. "Those people ... celebrated as Iraqis, not as Sunnis or Shiites. They sent a message to officials that it is easy to bring all Iraqis to stand side by side as it was easy to create problems among them."

Those celebrations came after decades of political and sporting isolation. Iraq's national team wasn't allowed to play at home from 1980 to 2003, when the country was at war with neighboring Iran and then was under international economic sanctions.

World soccer officials extended the ban after the U.S. invasion removed Saddam from power and triggered chaos and then a civil war.

However, games in the northern and relatively safe Kurdish city of Erbil were allowed.

Since 2009, Iraq was given two chances to show that it could host international matches, but violence that once again swept the country in recent years meant international officials pulled permission once more.

The drama surrounding Iraq's national team has played out against the country's greater national tragedy.

Since the fall of Saddam, about 3 million Iraqis have been displaced by violence, and according to the International Organization for Migration.

It isn't known how many Iraqis were killed in the eight years after the U.S. invasion, although estimates have put the number between 112,000 and around 500,000.

Mahmood Abed. NBC News

Soccer fan Mahmood Abed, 18, who sells sunglasses on the streets of Baghdad, could only dream of watching his national team play in person.

"I was raised among a family that used to go to watch the Iraqi team in Iraqi stadiums," Abed told NBC News. "My father always recalls those memories and tells me about what a wonderful feeling it was to watch your team playing in front of you."

He was age 8 at the outbreak of the civil war, which was driven by divisions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.

Nevertheless, Abed said, he doesn't make any religious distinction among his countrymen. And that feeling led directly to his love of soccer.

"When I watch a match in the TV for our national team, I do not ask if this player or that is a Sunni or a Shiite," he said. "I only care about the results."

An NBC News producer reported from Baghdad. F. Brinley Bruton reported from London.

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Iraq's National Soccer Team Aims to Prove to ISIS 'That Nothing Can ... - NBCNews.com

Recent advances suggest Iran-backed Iraqi militias could join pro-government forces in Syria battling ISIS. While both sides may want this to happen, there is still much ground to be covered before cross-border coordination would befeasible.

Militia fighters posed for a picture on the Iraqi side of the Syrian-Iraqi border. Iraqs Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) reached the Syrian frontier on May 29, 2017

BEIRUT Iraqs national security adviser met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last month to explore the prospect of direct military cooperation between their forces in the fight against the so-called Islamic State(ISIS).

Iraqi warplanes have been bombing ISIS positions in Syria since February, and it remains unclear what bolstered military cooperation on both sides of the border couldentail.

However, over the past two weeks, Iranian proxies in both Syria and Iraq made significant advances toward their respective sides of the border, suggesting an intent to join forces to battle ISIS in Syria a move that could give Assad unprecedented leverage in an upcoming offensive on the militant-held eastern city of DeirEzzor.

The prospect of joining forces became more likely on Monday after the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an Iranian-backed Shiite militia working with the Iraqi army to fight ISIS, reached the Syrianborder.

While recent gains sparked a conversation about cooperation, it is likely to be weeks perhaps months before the Iran-backed forces, who report to the governments in Damascus and Baghdad, could actually link up across thefrontier.

Following Mondays advance in Iraq, a PMF spokesman said his forces are ready to march into Syria to battle the militants, but added that they would need permission from the Iraqi and Syrian governments before they could doso.

PMF Deputy Commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, speaking to Iraqi al-Ahad TV, called the cross-border cooperation a natural right for Iraqi military forces, including the PMF to defend the security of Iraq from the sources of terrorism outside itsborder.

On the other side of the frontier, Iranian proxies in Syria have been advancing toward the Iraqi border on two fronts for more than a couple of weeks. Tehran-backed paramilitary groups began mobilizing around a U.S. training camp for anti-ISIS rebels in the southern Syrian town of Tanf, near the Iraqi border, in mid May a move that has put Assads allies in close confrontation with U.S.-backed forces on theground.

Videos released on social media purported to show fighters from the Iraqi Imam Ali Brigade preparing for the battle on Tanf. Other Iranian-backed Iraqi militias such as Harakat al-Abdal and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada are also operating in the area, according to Phillip Smyth, a researcher at the University of Maryland who focuses on Shiite militarism in the MiddleEast.

Additionally, hundreds of fighters from the Lebanese Hezbollah have reportedly deployed to fight U.S.-backed rebels in Tanf, according to reports by Fars News Agency, which is affiliated with Irans Revolutionary GuardCorps.

On the second front, Syrian troops and affiliated forces are pushing northeast from the ancient town of Palmyra toward the ISIS-controlled crossroads of Sukhna, which lies more than 124 km (77 miles) west of the militants new de facto capital Deir Ezzor. They are also pushing southeast of Palmyra toward the Iraqi border, into areas currently held byISIS.

It is necessary to understand that this border is very important to the Syrian regime and its allies, Fabrice Balanche, a visiting fellow at The Washington Institute, told Syria Deeply over Skype, explaining that control over the frontier would give Assad a boost against ISIS, by isolating the group into two separate pockets across the border and cutting off its supply lines fromIraq.

The influx of Iranian-backed paramilitaries into Syria from Iraq would also bolster the Syrian governments combat power as it pushes toward the eastern ISIS stronghold of Deir Ezzor, giving the Assad regime unprecedented leverage in the fight against the militantgroup.

According to Balanche, a ground link across the border is also especially important for Tehran, since it would provide a vital supply route for Iranian weapons into Syria and is crucial to Iranian plans to construct a ground corridor from Tehran all the way to the Mediterraneancoast.

Though significant, recent gains by both Syrian and Iraqi paramilitaries near the border do not yet allow Iranian-backed forces in Syria and Iraq to join ranks. We are still at the beginning of a process that began only one month ago, Balanchesaid.

Pro-government forces and the PMF can not link up in border positions captured by the Iraqi paramilitary group earlier this week, since these areas lie adjacent to Kurdish-held territory in northeastSyria.

The Syrian Democratic Forces, a U.S.-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters which controls the region, will not allow pro-government forces to enter its territories nor will it make way for Iraqi paramilitaries to use Hassakeh as a gateway into the rest of thecountry.

An SDF commander said Wednesday that his forces would fight Iraqi Shia militants if they attempted to enter territory they controlled in Syria. If Hashd forces attempt to enter our areas, our forces [SDF] will fight them, Talal Silo said, referring to thePMF.

On the Tanf front, the presence of U.S.-backed rebels known as Jaysh Maghawir al-Thawra, as well as U.S. and British Special Forces, who are preparing opposition groups for upcoming battles against ISIS, has complicated attempts to reach theborder.

U.S. warplanes carried out a series of attacks on a convoy of Iranian-backed paramilitary groups, including the Imam Ali Brigades, approaching the base on May 18, forcing pro-government militias to retreat north toward the Zaza checkpoint and Sabaa Biyar, a small town near the Damascus-Baghdadhighway.

U.S.-coalition warplanes also dropped leaflets in the Tanf region vowing to retaliate against any future government advances against itsforces.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based monitoring group, the leaflets said: Any moves towards al-Tanf is considered hostile and we will defend our forces You are within the safe area, leave this areanow.

The U.S. is also bolstering its combat power in southern Syria to fend off the threat of Assads Iran-backed allies, a spokesman of the U.S.-led coalition saidThursday.

In effect, the U.S. has created a buffer-zone between the Iraqi and Syrian borders, in a move that some claim is part of Washingtons effort to carve out an area of influence in southernSyria.

This leaves pro-government forces with only the southeastern route from Palmyra toward border areas roughly 100 km northeast of Tanf, where Iranian-backed groups could link up with PMF forces traversing down the frontier toward areas in Iraqs western Anbar province. However, this push will likely take time and effort, especially since ISIS still has forces deployed across the vast desert territory separating pro-government forces and the Iraqiborder.

The viability of linking up across the border, its still somewhat off, Aymenn Tamimi, a research fellow at the Middle East Forum, a U.S.-based think-tank, told Syria Deeply. A real linkup would require much more substantial gains for the regime and its allies pushingeast.

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Why Iran-Backed Forces in Iraq and Syria Can't Link Up Yet - News Deeply

Zynab Al Harbiya was killed by a suicide bomber near a Baghdad ice-cream parlour.

The father of a 12-year-old Melbourne girl who died in a car bomb explosion in Baghdad has spoken of his grief upon seeing her body, calling Islamic State attackers monsters who had killed a little girl with a big heart.

Zynab Al Harbiya, a year seven student from Melbournes Sirius College, was killed by a suicide bomber near an ice-cream shop in the Iraqi capital about midnight local time on Tuesday.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, which killed 17 people including Zynab and injured 32, and another car bomb outside the public pension office in Shawaka, which killed 14 people and injured at least 17. The attacks came just days into the holy month of Ramadan.

Zynab and her family were visiting Baghdad from Australia to see her sick grandfather and she was on her way to break fast with her cousins at the ice-cream parlour when the bomb went off.

Her father, Khalid Al Harbiya, was five hours south in Al Nasiriya and told Fairfax Media he had driven back to Baghdad not knowing whether his family was alive. He saw his daughters body in the morgue of the neurosurgery teaching hospital.

I started banging on my head when I saw. It was so traumatic, he told Fairfax. May God avenge us from Daesh.

He added: Normally your child survives you, not the other way around.

He had last spoken to Zynab the day before when she asked if she could buy a new iPhone.

It was such a brutal death. She was just a little girl, what has she ever done to anyone? She was not in the army or a fighter. They are criminals, they have no mercy, no humanity they are monsters.

He said Zynab had strong convictions and was creative. She also had big ambitions.

She wanted to be a lawyer or a teacher or a doctor, he said. She wanted to help people, I swear. She had a big heart.

Harbiya said his wife had gone into shock at Zynabs death and his two sons, Haydar, 10, and Bilal, seven, were distraught.

They wanted to see their sister but we stopped them because the scene is too horrific, he said. They are crying all the time saying we want our sister back.

Harbiya fled Iraq during Saddam Husseins regime and has lived in Australia for 20 years, working as a labourer. Zynab and her brothers were born in Australia.

On Wednesday the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, described the attack as vicious and extended our deepest sympathies to her family, her loved ones, her fellow students at Broadmeadows.

This tragedy underscores the brutality of this terrorist organisation that shows no respect for religion, nationality, sovereignty, borders, no respect for humanity, Bishop said.

Harbiya said he was heartened by support from Australia, which included limited consular support.

We are Muslims being targeted and these terrorists know no difference. We must stand together to fight against Daesh and terrorism.

Zynabs funeral was held in Baghdad on Wednesday, and students at Sirius College prayed for her.

Sirius Colleges principal, Halid Serdar Takimoglu, said she was a passionate and well-loved student, whose death had deeply distressed the school.

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Zynab Al Harbiya's father says girl killed in Iraq had 'big heart' - The Guardian