IRAQ-CONFLICT-AMERLI

Two Iraqi gilrs smile as residents of the town of Amerli celebrate while assistance arrives in the Shiite Turkmen-majority town brought in both by Iraqi government fighters and the United Nations after Iraqi forces broke a months-long jihadist siege of the by Islamic State (IS) fighters, on September 2, 2014. The Sunni extremist IS declared an Islamic "caliphate" in regions under its control in Iraq and Syria after it swept through much of the Sunni Arab heartland north of Baghdad in June and then stormed minority Christian and Yazidi Kurdish areas. AFP PHOTO/ ALI AL-SAADI (Photo by ALI AL-SAADI / AFP) (Photo by ALI AL-SAADI/AFP via Getty Images)