Thousands of children in Iraq are heading back to school in eastern areas of Mosul, recently cleared from ISIL control. <br /><br /> 30 schools in the northern Iraqi city are said to have opened this week allowing some 16,000 students to resume their studies. <br /><br /> During the two and a half years under the militants, a vast majority of students dropped out.<br /><br /> Describing the teaching methods under ISIL, one child said: ‘‘They taught us things like one bullet plus one bullet equals two bullets and one bomb plus one bomb… Their curriculum was very different.’‘ <br /><br /> Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Tuesday that government forces had taken full control of eastern Mosul, though deadly pockets of resistance were still reported. <br /><br /> He also confirmed that President Trump had offered extra military assistance to retake the city. Trump has made the fight against ISIL a foreign policy priority. <br /><br /> Meanwhile, the UN says it’s ‘‘racing against the clock’‘ to prepare emergency aid for hundreds of thousands of endangered civilians in Mosul. <br /><br /> The Iraqi army is gearing up to launch a major offensive on the western half of the city and there are fears they could get caught in the crossfire.<br />
