WORLD FOCUS: The year in pictures
Grief, loss & resilience
Record-breaking hurricanes brought death and destruction to the Caribbean and the US, while North Korea-US tensions soared. ISIS suffered military defeat but inspired terror attacks across the globe. Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe was brought down, while hundreds of thousands of Thais finally laid a beloved king to rest. Here is a wrap of some of the year's major events.
Mosul, the group's de facto capital in Iraq, fell in July after a gruelling nine-month campaign backed by a US-led coalition that saw much of the northern Iraqi city destroyed.
Thousands of people died in the battle and nearly a million were displaced.
On Dec 9, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared final victory over ISIS after Iraqi forces drove its last remnants from the country, three years after the militant group captured about a third of Iraq's territory. PHOTO: REUTERS
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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on December 19, 2017, with the headline Grief, loss & resilience. Subscribe
