DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Deep inside a 70-year-old water-treatment plant, drinking water for Iowa's capital city is cleansed of harmful nitrates that come from the state's famously rich farmland.

Without Des Moines Water Works, the central Iowa region of 500,000 people that it serves wouldn't have a thriving economy. But after decades of ceaseless service, the utility is confronting an array of problems: Water mains are cracking open hundreds of times every year. Rivers that provide its source water are increasingly polluted. And the city doesn't know how it will afford a $150 million treatment plant at a time when revenues are down and maintenance costs are up.

"We're reaching the end of the life cycle of some of the most critical assets we've got," said Bill Stowe, CEO and general manager of the utility, where the downtown plant was built long before nitrates that can harm infants became a pressing concern.

Around the country, scores of decaying drinking water systems built around the time of World War II and earlier are in need of replacement. The costs to rebuild will be staggering. The costs of inaction are already piling up. The challenge is deepened by drought conditions in some regions and government mandates to remove more contaminants.

At stake is the continued availability of clean, cheap drinking water — a public health achievement that has fueled the nation's growth for generations.

"The future is getting a little dark for something as basic and fundamental as water," said Adam Krantz of the Water Infrastructure Network, a lobbying group that is fighting cuts to key federal water programs.

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In this Wednesday, July 29, 2015 photo, a Des Moines Water Works employee works to fix a water main …

Unlike pothole-scarred roads or crumbling bridges, decaying water systems often go unnoticed until they fail. But without big changes in national policy, local governments and their ratepayers will be largely on their own in paying for the upgrades. The amount of federal money available is a drop in the bucket. That will mean rising water rates on customers, a trend that expected to continue for years.

"That's the key that Americans have to understand: If they want this system, they are going to have to be willing to finance it," said Greg DiLoreto, past president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, which has warned of a future with more equipment failures that will disrupt water service, transportation and commerce.

More than a million miles of underground pipes distribute water to American homes, and maintaining that network remains the largest and costliest long-term concern.

As they get older, they fail in different ways. Some split and rupture, with an estimated 700 main breaks occurring around the U.S. every day. The most devastating failures damage roadways, close businesses and shut off service for hours or days.

Utilities have long struggled to predict when to replace pipes, which have vastly different life cycles depending on the materials they are made from and where they are buried. Experts say a peak of up to 20,000 miles of pipe will need to be replaced annually beginning around 2035, up from roughly 5,000 miles currently. Each mile can cost $500,000 or more.

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This Wednesday, July 15, 2015 photo shows the Filter Plant of the Des Moines Water Works in Des Moin …

The impacts are playing out across the nation. The Philadelphia water department, the nation's oldest, is already spending tens of millions of dollars more per year to replace its worst pipes. Yet the city saw more than 900 water main breaks in the most recent budget year. In June, two massive breaks forced evacuations and damaged cars, homes and businesses.

New Orleans once boasted about not raising water rates for two decades. But in 2012, the city approved 10 percent increases on water bills for eight straight years as part of a plan to fix its crumbling system. The average household's monthly water-and-sewer bill will climb to $115 by 2020.

The massive main break that flooded the UCLA campus in Los Angeles in 2014 was widely seen as a wakeup call for failing infrastructure.

Pipes aren't the only components in need of big investments. Many treatment plants are old and need to be replaced or rebuilt at a cost of tens of millions of dollars even in small cities. New valves to control water flow, new pumping stations to keep up pressure and new tanks to store water are also needed.

The demand for investment comes as revenue is falling, in large part because Americans are using less water and installing more efficient toilets and showerheads. Many households affected by drought have also cut their usage, either voluntarily or because of mandatory orders. That is good for conservation but starves water systems, which charge customers based on the amount used.

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This Wednesday, July 15, 2015 photo shows an old drinking fountain at the Des Moines Water Works pla …

Facing the loss of income, many have been forced to raise rates. Customers are essentially paying more for using less.

Costs are also rising to accommodate federal regulations that require removal of more potentially harmful contaminants.

Many of these pressures are colliding in Des Moines, where the utility is considering a rate hike for customers of about 10 percent for next year.

Des Moines Water Works is fighting nitrate levels that are often far above the federal standard for safety in the two rivers that provide its source water. Nitrates are often the result of farm runoff that is tainted with fertilizer and manure, and removing them is expensive because they aren't addressed in the normal treatment process.

The water agency has taken the unprecedented step of suing three major Iowa farming counties in federal court to try to limit the farm discharges. But the litigation has provoked intense criticism from Iowa's powerful agricultural industry, which argues that farmers are already taking voluntary measures to control them. If the problems persist, Stowe said, the utility will have to spend $150 million to build a nitrate-removal plant.

The treatment costs also leave less money to replace Des Moines' aging pipes. The effects are felt by residents such as Mario Tumea, whose family's Italian restaurant was closed in May for a day and a half after a 12-inch cast-iron main from 1938 split and sent water gushing into the street.

"It's frustrating," he said. "But when you have old pipes and stuff like that, it's going to happen."

Beit Furik (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Two AFP journalists were assaulted Friday by Israeli soldiers who destroyed and seized their equipment in the occupied West Bank after the funeral of a Palestinian killed by the army.

A video journalist with the agency, Italian Andrea Bernardi, was thrown to the ground and jabbed in the side with a weapon.

He was held on the ground by a soldier, one knee compressing his chest, until he managed to show his press card.

Bernardi suffered bruised ribs and an injury under the eye.

Israeli soldiers pointed their weapons at him and his colleague, Palestinian photographer Abbas Momani.

They smashed a video camera and a stills camera and took away another camera and a mobile phone.

At the time both journalists were wearing body armour clearly marked "Press".

The incident was filmed and posted online by a local production company.

The pair had been covering clashes between Palestinians and soldiers when some troops took them aside, swore at them in English and told them to stop recording events.

AFP has protested to the Israeli military over the incident and said it intends to file an official complaint.

"Disciplinary measures will be taken," army spokesman Colonel Peter Lerner told the agency.

"The highest levels of command are aware of the incident," he said, specifying that this includes the head of Israeli forces in the West Bank.

In an incident on April 24, the Palestinian AFP photographer manhandled Friday and a Palestinian colleague had stones thrown at them by Israeli soldiers.

That incident was also filmed, and the army announced that disciplinary action would be taken against the soldiers involved.

Friday's clashes between Palestinians and troops at Beit Furik came after the funeral of Ahmed Khatatbeh, 26.

He died of his wounds after being shot by soldiers near Nablus in the northern West Bank. The army said he and another man had thrown a petrol bomb at a vehicle on a road to the Jewish settlement of Itamar.

According to the New York Times, about 20,000 foreigners have joined jihadist groups in the Middle East over the last two years. About a quarter of those are Europeans, and it is estimated that between 25% and 40% have gone back to Europe.

The new report says that most of the defectors have gone into hiding to escape reprisal from ISIS but also to avoid imprisonment in the countries to which they are returning. According to the report, 58 defectors from Europe and Australia have now publicly spoken about their experience.

In the reasons listed as to why they became disenchanted with the jihadist group, most defectors mention the violence toward other Muslims. Two defectors who left after finding out they had been selected to be suicide bombers told the BBC that the "brutality of IS terrifies everyone," referring to ISIS (aka Islamic State, IS, ISIL, and Daesh).

A Syrian man who had initially joined a rebel group fighting the Assad regime joined ISIS when his whole tribe pledged allegiance. He told the BBC that the first stage of the ISIS indoctrination was a course on the Sharia.

"Not the principles of Islam, the principles of the Islamic State," the man said. "So they teach you the Islam they want."

He said ISIS tactics boiled down to this "If you're against me, then you'll be killed. If you're with me, you work with me. You submit to my will and obey me, under my power in all matters."

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Ibrahim says he saw crucifixions and the stoning to death of a couple convicted of adultery, he told CBS news.

"There were many hundreds of people there who observed. While seeing someone die is not something anyone would probably want to see, having the actual Sharia established is what many Muslims look forward to."

He also told CBS news that he did not find the methods medieval.

"It's harsh, it's real but it's the Sharia," he said.

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Eventually though he grew disillusioned with the group because he did not approve of the killing of non-combatants such as aid workers and journalists. But he also said that his main reason for leaving was that he was not doing what he had come to do: give Syrians humanitarian help.

“It had become something else — so, therefore, no longer justified me being away from my family," Ibrahim told CBS news.

Many defectors just got bored with what they saw as favoritism by commanders toward some fighters, and felt that the life of a jihadi was less exciting than what they had seen in the propaganda videos. Others, who joined because of the promise of luxury items, cars or having their debt paid off, came back as it got clearer that those were empty promises, the AFP reports.

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The report also urges governments to protect ISIS defectors in a bid to incentive them to speak out as reports of their experience could be used as a "potentially powerful tool in the fight against it. The defectors’ very existence shatters the image of unity and determination that ISIS seeks to convey," the report says.

According the Peter Neumann, the director of the center and professor of security studies at King’s College,a lot of people are becoming more confident in speaking out against the caliphate as ISIS' shininess is wearing off, and it’s starting to look less impressive."

The report acknowledges that many of the defectors may have committed crimes but it also said that governments should “remove legal disincentives” that deter defectors from going public and should try to resettle them rather than imprison them.

The full study is expected to be published on Monday.

United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The Islamic State group is making inroads in Afghanistan, winning over a growing number of sympathizers and recruiting followers in 25 of the country's 34 provinces, a UN report said Friday.

The jihadist group, which controls large areas of Syria and Iraq, has been trying to establish itself in Afghanistan, challenging the Taliban on their own turf.

Afghan security forces told UN sanctions monitors that about 10 percent of the Taliban insurgency are IS sympathizers, according to the report by the UN's Al-Qaeda monitoring team.

"The number of groups and individuals who are openly declaring either loyalty to or sympathy with ISIL continues to grow in a number of provinces in Afghanistan," said the report.

Afghan government sources said "sightings of the groups with some form of ISIL branding" or sympathy were reported in 25 provinces in the war-torn country, it added.

The IS-backed groups "regularly engage" Afghan military forces, but fighting with other parts of the insurgency are rare, except in Nangarhar province where they are battling the Taliban for control of the drug trade.

Among the prominent IS fighters, the report singled out Abdul Rauf Khadem, a former Taliban adviser to Mullah Omar, who visited Iraq in October 2014 and has since formed his own group in Helmand and Farah provinces.

Khadem allegedly has been recruiting followers by paying out large sums of money.

Foreign fighters from Pakistan and Uzbekistan, some of whom have close ties to Al-Qaeda, have come under the IS banner after fleeing their country and have "rebranded themselves" in recent months, the report said.

Up to 70 IS fighters have come from Iraq and Syria and now form the core of the jihadists' branch in Afghanistan, according to the report.

Afghan security authorities do not consider the growing emergence of Islamic State as an "immediate increased threat" but they are keeping an eye on the situation as a "potential new threat", it added.

The UN monitoring team said IS had improved its propaganda in English in a sign of increased competition with the Taliban.

The Taliban, who have themselves often been accused of savagery during their 14-year insurgency, are seeking to appear as a bulwark against IS's brutality and as a legitimate group waging an Islamic war.

Earlier this month the Taliban condemned a "horrific" video that apparently showed IS fighters blowing up bound and blindfolded Afghan prisoners with explosives.