'Soul of old Baghdad': city centre sees timid revival

Such a tour would have been unthinkable in the Iraqi capital through much of recent decades due to the country's successive wars, which saw Baghdad pounded from the air, targeted by suicide bombers and hit with car bomb attacks. "Several caliphs worked on it," tour leader and professor Muaffaq al-Tai, 83, told the group as they passed under an impressive brick dome, smart phones and cameras in hand. Braving an autumn heatwave, one of the tour organisers, Abdullah Imad, relished being able to help...