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Dozens of Iraqi security force members killed in army base attack

At least 42 members of Iraq’s security forces have been killed in a suicide attack targeting an army base north of Fallujah, in Iraq’s Anbar province. The bombing was carried out with an armored Humvee vehicle laden with explosives, military sources told Al Jazeera. Witnesses said ammunition stored in the base’s depot continued to explode several hours after the initial attack, which occurred at 3 a.m. local time Monday. Iraqi officials said the death toll of the attack was likely to rise. The attack came a day after Haider al-Abadi, Iraq’s prime minister, acknowledged the loss of about 2,300 Humvee armored vehicles when the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) overran the northern city of Mosul last year. Also on Monday, at least 33 Iraqi soldiers and allied militia fighters were killed in an ambush by ISIL fighters in Seddiqiya in Anbar province. More than 40 others […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Why Islamic State Keeps Winning

Popular Mobilization forces fire against ISIS militants near Sayed Ghareeb, Iraq, on May 28. Photographer: Mohammed Sawaf/AFP/Getty Images When Islamic State seized Iraq’s largest northern city of Mosul almost a year ago, tribal leader Hekmat Suleiman was sure the extremist militants wouldn’t expand further into his hometown. “We bet Islamic State won’t have what it takes to last,” Suleiman said in October during a visit to the Iraqi Kurdish city of Erbil, smoke rising from his shisha water pipe. “We’ve reached the beginning of the end of extremism.” He was wrong. His hometown of Ramadi fell last month, three days before Islamic State captured Palmyra , a 2,000-year-old UNESCO world heritage city on the Syrian side of its territory. The battlefield victories ahead of the first anniversary of the group’s self-declared caliphate on June 29 emphasize its ability to endure U.S.-led coalition airstrikes as well as lower oil prices, […]

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Americans and Turks Discuss ISIS Threat

Photo Shiite militiamen clashed with members of the Islamic State in Fallujah, Iraq. Turkey wants to clear ISIS from its southern border. Credit Hadi Mizban/Associated Press WASHINGTON — American and Turkish officials are discussing a joint effort to clear Islamic State fighters away from Turkey ’s southern border, a senior State Department official said on Monday. The official did not provide details or explain what role American air power might play, but he said that discussions with Turkish officials had progressed after several rocky months. “We are looking for things we can do in a very material and tangible way,” the official said. “We want to get those extremists off their border. We want to look at a way that we can do that cooperatively with them.” Senior officials from the United States-led coalition that is fighting the Islamic State group are scheduled to meet in Paris on Tuesday […]

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Iran’s Nuclear Stockpile Grows, Complicating Negotiations

Photo Secretary of State John Kerry, left, with the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, in Geneva on Saturday. Credit Pool photo by Susan Walsh WASHINGTON — With only one month left before a deadline to complete a nuclear deal with Iran, international inspectors have reported that Tehran’s stockpile of nuclear fuel increased about 20 percent over the last 18 months of negotiations, partially undercutting the Obama administration’s contention that the Iranian program had been “frozen” during that period. But Western officials and experts cannot quite figure out why. One possibility is that Iran has run into technical problems that have kept it from converting some of its enriched uranium into fuel rods for reactors, which would make the material essentially unusable for weapons. Another is that it is increasing its stockpile to give it an edge if the negotiations fail. The extent to which Iran’s stockpile has increased […]

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French Minister Laurent Fabius Wary on Iran Nuclear Deal

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius speaks on Monday in Bonn, Germany. ABUJA, Nigeria—French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said a possible nuclear deal with Iran risks sparking a nuclear arms race in the Middle East unless the agreement grants international inspectors access to Iranian military sites and other secret facilities. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Fabius insisted the ability to inspect such sites be part of a final agreement with Iran to ensure Tehran doesn’t covertly try to build a nuclear weapon. The warning highlights a persistent divide between Western negotiators and Tehran , which has demanded Iranian military sites remain off-limits to international inspectors. “The best agreement, if you cannot verify it, it’s useless,” said Mr. Fabius. “Several countries in the region would say, OK, a paper [has been signed] but we think it is not strong enough and therefore we ourselves have to become […]

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Saudi Aramco revisits rig contracts

Saudi Aramco withdraws notice of termination for rig Hercules 261, owner says. Photo courtesy of Hercules Offshore HOUSTON, June 1 (UPI) — U.S. rig company Hercules Offshore said Monday its clients in Saudi Arabia withdrew a notice to terminate a contract for its services. Hercules said Saudi Aramco withdrew its notice of termination for rig Hercules 261, "declaring that all terms and conditions of the contract remain in full force and effect for the remainder of the five-year term of the contract." Hercules in February said it was engaged in talks with the Saudi oil company to reduce the day rates for two other rigs, Hercules 262 and Hercules 266, when the contract was suspended. Hercules 261 is listed in the company’s fleet status update as having a day rate around $135,000. Rigs 262 and 266 have a combined average day rate of around $118,000. "Notwithstanding the receipt of […]

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Naimi says Saudi oil strategy working, sees stronger demand

VIENNA Saudi Arabia’s oil minister Ali al-Naimi said on Monday he expects oil demand to pick up in the second half of 2015 while supply decreases, in a sign that the kingdom’s strategy of defending market share was working. The comment indicates Saudi Arabia will likely propose not to change output policy at producer group OPEC’s meeting on Friday, although Naimi declined to speak directly on the issue. "The answer is yes," Naimi said in his first public comment upon arrival in Vienna, where the meeting will take place, when asked whether the strategy of defending market share through higher supplies and lower oil prices was working. "Demand is picking up. Good! Supply is slowing, right? That is a fact," he told reporters. "You can see that I’m not stressed, I’m happy," he said. Naimi was the key architect of OPEC’s decision at its last meeting in November 2014 […]

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Abu Dhabi Wealth Fund Changing Tack Amid Lower Oil Prices

DUBAI—The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, a sovereign-wealth fund with assets estimated at more than $700 billion, is relying less on external money managers and handling more of its investments in-house as its owner grapples with lower oil prices. Funded by excess revenue from the government of Abu Dhabi, a major Persian Gulf oil producer, ADIA was managing 35% of its money in-house in 2014, compared with 25% in the previous year, according to an annual review released Tuesday. Investors watch ADIA’s allocations and money-management strategies carefully because of the effect a shift by a fund its size could potentially have on asset prices. The change reflected growth in internal expertise in recent years, the fund’s managing director, Sheikh Hamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, said in a letter accompanying the report. “While this work is now nearing its conclusion, we will continue to recruit selectively in 2015,” Sheikh Hamed said. […]

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China Energy Exchange Targets a Market Gap

SINGAPORE—China may have become the world’s largest importer of crude oil in April, but there is one thing it still lacks: its own oil market. That could change this year if the Shanghai International Energy Exchange Ltd., also known as INE, launches a long-planned oil-futures contract in Shanghai’s free-trade zone. Yang Maijun, the chairman of the Shanghai Futures Exchange, one of the partners in INE, said earlier this year that trading in the new oil contract could begin in 2015. The establishment of an oil-futures market in China could prove another milestone in what analysts at Macquarie Group Ltd. MQBKY 1.09 % recently called a “seismic shift in futures-trading firepower from West to East” in commodities markets. Already, the volume of metals futures traded on Chinese exchanges at times eclipses volumes on the London Metal Exchange, according to Macquarie. Ten of the 20 agricultural commodity contracts that had the […]

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Glut of Chinese Goods Pinches Global Economy

DONGYING, China— Liu Zijun built a thriving tire-manufacturing business when China’s economy was roaring ahead. But when China’s growth weakened, he had to cut prices to keep his business afloat. Now the pain felt by industrialists such as Mr. Liu is reverberating across the globe, showing how China, once the world’s most reliable source of growth, is adding to deflationary pressures world-wide. In the rubber-tree fields of Southeast Asia, planters are scrambling to cut prices for their latex fast enough to keep customers in China happy. In the U.S., tire distributors are marking down prices and some are cutting staff as China floods the U.S. with discounted goods from unneeded factories. “The growing production capacity in China changed the U.S. industry,” said Brian Grant, chief executive of Del-Nat Tire Corp., a Tennessee tire distributor that exited the business early this year after chalking up losses on overpriced inventory it […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple