Green Zone. International Zone. The Bubble. To the foreigners still living there, the Iraqi capital’s fortified center has a new name: Ghost Town.
The Iraqi government has taken full control of the former heart of the American occupation. It decides who gets past the 17-foot-tall concrete blast walls encircling the zone.
On the inside, Iraqi police and military forces have raided the offices of private security companies, prompting the firms and commercial companies that rely on them to relocate.
“They have hit a point where it’s virtually impossible to stay,” said Doug Brooks, president of the International Stability Operations Association, a trade group that represents foreign firms and nonprofit organizations in Iraq.
The result: The International Zone has become the Iraqi Zone, and an increasingly isolated one at that.
“What we see now, in some ways, is they are fortifying it,” said Iraqi parliament member Mahmoud Othman. On the inside, Iraqi police and military forces have raided the offices of private security companies, prompting the firms and commercial companies that rely on them to relocate.
TVNL Comment: How many billions, how many lives? And for what? Just asking....



U.S. President Donald Trump pressed Hamas to act faster in returning the bodies of deceased hostages...
For months doctors at the last functioning hospital in the wartorn Sudanese city of el-Fasher performed...
At a secret location in rural Ukraine, columns of attack drones are assembled at night and...





























