For the second time since 2013 Iraq football fans will be able to witness national team playing on home soil since Fifa lifted ban on competitive international game inside the country.

On Thursday 5th October,Iraq will host Kenya at Basra Sport City Stadium three months after they hosted Jordan in a highly explosive match that the hosts won 1-0.

Ranked 88th in the world,The Lions of Mesopotamia have confirmed that they will play aganist Harambee Stars in the country, five years after a coach was killed by security forces in the war torn country that made Fifa place the ban.

According Al-Monitor, Iraqis’ passion for football cuts across the deep religious and political divisions that have fuelled horrific violence in t he country for years, and the country’s national teams have brought people together amid some of the worst of the unrest.

But world football’s governing body FIFA and the AFC had five years ago periodically banned Iraq from hosting international matches with the ban lifted in June 2017.

Violence was rising, part of a multi-year crescendo of bloodshed that culminated in the Islamic State group’s takeover of large areas north and west of Baghdad the following summer.

Among the targets of frequent jihadist attacks in 2013 were football pitches where Iraqi children played the sport and cafes broadcasting matches.

Before during and after the Kenya’s match,security will be expected tight in Basra, which is far from the battlefields of Iraq’s war against jihadists, but still suffers from violence due to other causes, including inter-tribal conflicts.