FOREIGNER ARAB BOY PLAYS INSIDE HISTORIC CITY OF HATRA, 350 KM NORTH OF BAGHDAD, 2002-12-17 (photo)

A Foreigner Arab boy plays inside the historic city of Hatra, 350 km north of Baghdad December 17,2002. Few foreigners nowadays see the archaeological treasures of sanctions-shackled Iraq such as the ancient Kingdom of Hatra, also known as the City of the Sun, which houses the temples. Iraq is packed with historical treasures from the era of Mesopotamia's Babylon and Ur to the Islamic age, whose glories include the golden-domed grand mosques of Najaf and Karbala, and ornate Abbasid dynasty palaces in Bagdad and Samarra. But what was once a heavy flow of tourists thinned to a trickle in the 1990s under the isolating impact of U.N. sanctions for Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. TO GO WITH STORY-BC-MIDEAST-IRAQ-HATRA. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem SJS/CMC/AA