Hot springs spa reopens amid Mosul war chaos

HAMMAM AL-ALIL, Iraq - Some Iraqis in this town get massages in a spa or take muddy baths and relax in the morning sun on the banks of the Tigris. Others beg for food or rise at dawn to queue for water.

Hammam al-Alil, a town south of Mosul once famous throughout Iraq for its healing hot waters, is back in business after a United States-backed offensive retook the area from Islamic State militants and authorities reopened its spa.

This oasis of leisure now coexists, however, with camps housing more than 30,000 of the people displaced in the region by the campaign to dislodge IS from Mosul, its last major city stronghold in Iraq.