Month: June 2014

Iraq ’s military pummeled the positions of Sunni Muslim insurgents who have captured large chunks of territory north of Baghdad, trying to turn back battlefield advances that threaten to split apart the country. The army killed more than 279 “terrorists” with the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and destroyed 50 of the group’s vehicles within 24 hours, military spokesman Qassim Ata said in a televised news conference yesterday. “The security situation is improving” and government forces are conducting pre-emptive operations in Baghdad, which is under their control, he said. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite Muslim-led government is seeking to reassert control over territory held by the breakaway al-Qaeda group, whose advances put in doubt his rule over a unified Iraq. Sectarian strife is pushing OPEC’s second-largest oil producer closer to civil war, three years after the U.S. withdrew its forces from the country. Jihadist forums and social-media […]

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The USS George HW Bush has been sent to the Gulf by the US along with two other military vessels Continue reading the main story Washington is considering direct talks with Iran on the security situation in Iraq, a US official has told the BBC. The move comes as US President Barack Obama weighs up options on action to take in Iraq. Meanwhile, the US condemned as "horrifying" photos posted online by Sunni militants that appear to show fighters massacring Iraqi soldiers. In the scenes, the soldiers are shown being led away and lying in trenches before and after their "execution". The Iraqi military said the pictures were real, but their authenticity has not been independently confirmed. The BBC’s Jim Muir, in northern Iraq, says if the photographs are genuine, it would be by far the biggest single […]

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At least six Kurdish forces were killed in shelling overnight Saturday in northern Iraq in a shadowy incident that appeared to further muddy the waters of a conflict that threatens to split this country into autonomous Sunni-, Shiite-, and Kurdish-ruled territories. The deepening crisis in Iraq has highlighted the failings of both Iraq’s current government — which Iraqi Sunnis have long accused of fomenting a sectarian divide — and the U.S. forces that helped bring it to power after the American ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003. On Sunday, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair defended the U.S. and U.K.-led invasion of the country, telling the BBC that even without the eight-year occupation, “you would have still had a major problem in Iraq.” “You know, we can rerun the debates about 2003 — and there are perfectly legitimate points on either side — but where we are […]

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BAGHDAD — Wielding the threat of sectarian slaughter, Sunni Islamist militants claimed on Sunday that they had massacred hundreds of captive Shiite members of Iraq’s security forces, posting grisly pictures of a mass execution in Tikrit as evidence and warning of more killing to come. Even as anecdotal reports of extrajudicial killings around the country seemed to bear out the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’s intent to kill Shiites wherever it could, Iraqi officials and some human rights groups cautioned that the militants’ claim to have killed 1,700 soldiers in Tikrit could not be immediately verified. But with their claim, the Sunni militants were reveling in an atrocity that if confirmed would be the worst yet in the conflicts that roil the region, outstripping even the poison gas attack near Damascus last year. In an atmosphere where there were already fears that the militants’ sudden advance near the […]

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Emboldened by a call to arms by the top Shiite cleric, Iranian-backed militias have moved quickly to the center of Iraq’s political landscape, spearheading what its Shiite majority sees as a fight for survival against Sunni militants who control of large swaths of territory north of Baghdad. The emergence of the militias as a legitimate force enjoying the support of the Shiite-led government and the blessing of the religious establishment poses a threat to Iraq’s unity, planting the seed for new sectarian strife and taking the regional Shiite-Sunni divide to a potentially explosive level. Iraq’s Shiite militias attacked U.S. forces during the eight-year American presence in the country. They also were in the lead in the Sunni-Shiite killings of 2006-07, pushing Iraq to the brink of civil war. Their death squads targeted radical Sunnis and they orchestrated the cleansing of Sunnis from several Baghdad neighborhoods. More […]

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With Baghdad threatened by the advance of an al-Qaida-inspired insurgency, the State Department is reinforcing security at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq’s capital – and sending some personnel out of town. Much of the embassy staff will stay in place, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement released Sunday. The statement did not say the number of personnel affected. The embassy, along the Tigris River in Baghdad’s Green Zone, has about 5,000 personnel and is the largest U.S. diplomatic post in the world. Some embassy staff members were being temporarily moved elsewhere to more stable places at consulates in Basra, in the Shiite-dominated south of Iraq, and Irbil, in the Kurdish semi-autonomous region in northeastern Iraq, and to Jordan, she said. "Overall, a substantial majority of the U.S. Embassy presence in Iraq will remain in place and the embassy will be fully equipped to […]

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The American Embassy in Baghdad plans to evacuate a substantial number of its personnel this week in the face of a militant advance that rapidly swept from the north toward the capital, the State Department announced on Sunday. The embassy, a beige fortress on the banks of the Tigris River within the heavily secured Green Zone, where Iraqi government buildings are also situated, has the largest staff of any United States Embassy. The exact number of people being evacuated from Baghdad — the American government prefers to say they are being “relocated” — was not disclosed. But the embassy will remain open, and most of its staff will remain, according to the State Department. The United States has a staff of about 5,500 at the embassy and at two consulates in the north and south of Iraq. “Some additional U.S. government security personnel will be added […]

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The international oil companies in charge of Iraq’s two most prolific oil fields have significantly reduced their presence in Basra after a shockwave of violence struck northern Iraq and Shia militia activity and recruitment began to spike throughout the south. BP and ExxonMobil, which operate Rumaila and West Qurna 1, respectively, have sent most or all of their foreign staff out of the country, according to varying accounts given by Iraqi workers at those fields. There is no indication that… This content is for registered users. Please login to continue. If you are not a registered user, you may purchase a subscription or sign up for a free trial .

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