Fed up with waiting for assistance from the Iraqi authorities to materialise, traders at the ravaged Bab al-Saray market in Mosul's Old City are rebuilding their shattered businesses themselves.

After months of silence, the sound of construction work and returning commerce is finally filling the historic district devastated by the months-long battle to force out the Islamic State group.

"I was the first to open my shop some two months back after cleaning it up with the help of other traders," ironmonger Zanoun Younes Rajab, 44, told AFP.

The father of five and neighbouring stallholders had to each fork out 25,000 dinars ($20, 18 euros) just to clear the rubble blocking their street.

In the neighbouring alleys -- where grocers and carpenters are looking to start plying their trades again -- it is the same story.

- Still dangerous -

The market, part of which dates back over 1,300 years to the time of the Ummayyad caliphate, bears the scars of the fierce fighting that saw IS jihadists finally kicked out of Iraq's second city in July.

Shopfronts are blasted, ceilings have caved in, wooden beams are broken, stocks have been plundered.

Under the rubble lie rotting corpses of jihadists killed in street-to-street clashes or by air strikes from a US-led coalition.

There is not much left intact in what was once one of Mosul's busiest neighbourhoods.

Gateways leading into the market have been pulverised and accessing some areas remains dangerous because of the threat of unexploded munitions or IS booby traps, despite assurances by security officials.

But this has not put off some traders from trying to bring the district back to life.

Builders are busy fixing roofs or mending the shattered pavements.

"We did not wait for the city authorities because they are very slow and it would surely take months longer," said spice seller Abu Ahmed.

- 'No reconstruction plan' -

Mayor Zouhair al-Araji insists that local officials are doing all they can "with the little we have at our disposal".

Most equipment was stolen or destroyed, electricity and water are still out in parts of town and many roads remain impassable.

He instead points the finger of blame further up the chain to the authorities in Baghdad.

"Up until now we have only been relying on ourselves as the central government still has no reconstruction plan for Mosul," he said.

That means that it is down to the market traders to try to return some of the missing life.

Abu Nabil, 65, could not wait any longer as time slipped by after the official announcement of Mosul's liberation.

His carpet stall is the oldest in the market and has been passed down from father to son for generations in his family.

"I cannot imagine my life without my work and my shop, so today I am cleaning it up and starting to bring back everything I saved before the fighting," he said.

"Our shop is our soul, we cannot live without it in peace."

Iraqis denounce anti-indecency edict in Shiite holy city
Karbala, Iraq (AFP) Dec 23, 2017 - Residents in Iraq's Shiite holy city of Karbala have denounced a local decision that could soon see salesmen in trouble for displaying female mannequins in anything but Islamic clothing.

Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed and an important figure in Shiite Islam, is buried in Karbala.

Posters warning against indecent behaviour have been plastered around the city as part of the application of a 2012 provincial council decision to uphold its "holy character", council member Nasser Hussein al-Khozali said.

The signs warn residents against "shockingly displaying women's clothes", as well as "selling indecent films" and airing "music or indecent words in public places".

The posters, signed by an "implementation committee for the decision on Karbala's holy character", warn that sanctions will be taken against offenders.

Not everyone is the city supports the decision, however.

"Listening to music is part of personal freedoms," said taxi driver Majah Hassan, as a song belted out of his car radio.

"Nobody can forbid it as I'm not harming anyone by doing it."

Inside a shopping centre, women's clothes salesman Ahmad Hussein railed against a decision that he said infringed freedoms and hurt business.

"The provincial council would do better fixing the roads and improving public services," he said.

The head of a civil society association said the council decision was no different from the harsh rules imposed by Islamic State group jihadists on areas they controlled until their defeat in Iraq earlier this month.

"This kind of decision, which is allegedly based on religion, is in fact no different from IS ideology," Ehab al-Wazarni said.

Hadi al-Mussawi, also an activist, said the move "aimed to garner votes in the elections" for parliament in May.

After seizing control of second city Mosul in 2014, IS prohibited shopkeepers and street vendors from displaying women's clothing on mannequins.

Several Shiite armed groups also imposed the rule in southern Iraq at the height of the sectarian violence that followed the 2003 US-led invasion of the country.

River cruise weddings return to Iraq's Basra
Basra, Iraq (AFP) Dec 19, 2017 - To the sound of drums and trumpets, an Iraqi groom and his bride this week stepped hand-in-hand onto a speed boat on the river in Basra to celebrate.

Their wedding on Monday was the first such celebration to be held on the Shatt al-Arab waterway running through the southern city since the 1980s.

Aboard the small speed boat decorated with tinsel and balloons, labourer Hussein Ali Jabbar and his wife donned captain hats and posed for the camera.

Their guests danced away their one-hour ride on four larger vessels to tunes belted out by the brass band and blaring from the television.

It was the first wedding on the river since the devastating 1980-1988 war between Iraq and Iran.

Many continued to avoid the river afterwards, deeming it unsafe amid tensions with neighbouring Iran and Kuwait, and fearing insurgent attacks after the US-led invasion of 2003.

"Everybody in town remembers the river weddings in the past," said Talib al-Bdairy, spokesman for the state company behind the relaunch.

"We want to bring back to life these wonderful memories on these modern safe boats," he said.

The General Company of Maritime Transports did not charge for Monday's wedding cruise as the bride's father was killed this year in the northern city of Mosul fighting the Islamic State jihadist group.

But the going rate for future celebrations will be 2,000 Iraqi dinars (or $1.5) per head.

It was the groom's idea to have a wedding on the water.

"A wedding on the river makes everyone happy... It's much better than being stuck in traffic in the city," he said.

His uncle, Karim Mohammed, offered another reason to celebrate on the Shatt al-Arab.

It "avoids the gunshots in the air that are often how we celebrate a happy event here but often end in tragedy," he said.

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UN voices alarm at clashes, house burnings in disputed Iraqi city
Geneva (AFP) Dec 15, 2017
The UN voiced deep concern Friday over the reported shelling and burning of homes in the Iraqi city of Tuz Khurmatu, warning of a "serious risk" that violence could escalate. The United Nations rights office pointed to reports that residential areas of Tuz Khurmatu, in the Salahaddin governorate, had been shelled on December 9 and 12, "causing casualties among civilians." "It is not clea ... read more

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