Category: Iraq

AP Photo BAGHDAD (AP) — The Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq says its peshmerga forces have killed 25 Islamic State militants and cleared nine villages south of the northern oil city of Kirkuk in a new offensive. A statement by the Kurdistan Regional Security Council says Wednesday’s offensive began at dawn, involved 2,000 soldiers and enjoyed air support from a U.S.-led coalition. The Kurdish region in northern Iraq has enjoyed self-rule since the end of the 1991 Gulf War. The regional government’s peshmerga forces have been battling IS militants since the extremist group swept across much of the area as well as western Iraq in the summer of 2014. The statement did not say whether there were peshmerga casualties.

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Gulf Keystone Petroleum Ltd. reiterated its production forecast for its main oil field in the Kurdistan region of Iraq and expressed optimism about the resumption of export payments from local authorities. “We are confident that our host government will be able to deliver on their recent pledge to establish a regular payment cycle for our crude from next month,” Chief Executive Officer Jon Ferrier said Thursday in a statement. “This will provide us with the necessary means to recommence investment into the field.” Full-year production for its flagship Shaikan field will be 30,000 to 34,000 barrels a day, the company said. Gulf Keystone loss after tax widened to $77.7 million in the first half, from $29.8 million a year earlier. The slump in crude prices over the past year has squeezed the budgets of Iraq’s federal and regional governments, preventing regular payments to Gulf Keystone and other exporters including […]

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In this Monday, Aug. 24, 2015 photo, Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, second from right, meets with his military commanders at an Iraqi Army base near the oil refinery town of Beiji north of Baghdad, Iraq. Al-Abadi said that winning the ongoing battle over control of an oil refinery town north of Baghdad is the key to defeating the Islamic State group in Iraq during his visit to the town of Beiji. Photo: Uncredited, AP / AP In this Monday, Aug. 24, 2015 photo, Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, second from right, meets with his military commanders at an Iraqi Army base near the oil refinery town of Beiji north of Baghdad, Iraq. Al-Abadi said that winning the ongoing battle over control of an oil refinery town north of Baghdad is the key to defeating the Islamic State group in Iraq during his visit to the town of Beiji. […]

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Twin oil pipelines run north to a processing facility at the Avana Dome oil formation in the Sargaran sub-district, Aug. 25, 2015. (PATRICK OSGOOD/Iraq Oil Report) Iraqi oil exports to Turkey’s Ceyhan port are stopped again after going offline Monday morning – the latest in an intensifying pattern of outages that have blocked Kurdistan’s oil sector from reaching the international market for one-third of August.The combined effect of a slump in oil prices and incessant outages along the pipeline could jeopardize the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) policy of becoming self-reliant through independent oil exports. The August shutoffs alone have pre… 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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Iraqi Kurdistan’s problems with their President are actually nothing new. In fact, being a President here has often had no democratic or legal foundation. There’s a long history behind the current debate. A PUK supporter holds a green flag during election campaigning in 2010. (photo: دشتي أنور) The Iraqi Kurdish President’s term expired yesterday. And the political actors in the semi-autonomous, northern region have been arguing about whether the current President, Massoud Barzani, should stay or go for more than two months now, in the run up to this expiration. Nobody has been able to come to any kind of agreement and it looks as though, despite the best efforts of many, the debate will go on. But in fact this particular debate has been going on for far longer than the current episode. The question of who should get the job of president in Iraqi Kurdistan has been […]

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Iraqi forces and loyalists launched an offensive to recapture Anbar province in July [Reuters] Dozens of Iraqi forces have reportedly been killed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq’s Anbar province, which has witnessed heavy fighting since Iraqi forces launched an offensive in July. Three car bombs in Al Toui, northwest of Ramadi, killed at least 18 Iraqi forces and members of the Popular Mobilisation Forces on Monday, sources told Al Jazeera. A total death toll of 46 Iraqi forces and Popular Mobilisation Forces has been reported following days of heavy clashes in several areas as Iraqi forces advanced in their offensive to recapture Anbar province. Analysts skeptical about latest Iraqi army Anbar offensive At least seven ISIL fighters have been killed, military sources said. Karim al-Nouri, a spokesman for the Popular Mobilisation Forces, an umbrella organisation of mainly Shia militiamen, said the operation […]

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Oil workers protest at the headquarters of the state-run South Oil Company (SOC) on Aug. 20, 2015. (ALI ABU IRAQ/Iraq Oil Report) Basra government officials have negotiated temporary solutions to disperse two groups of protesters who had been blocking access to Iraq’s largest oil field and its only deep-water port.For nearly a week, the protest in North Rumaila closed down a main road leading to the Rumaila oil field, which produces more than one-third of the country’s oil. On Friday at Umm Qasr port, local residents began blocking the only road leading into the facility, threatening to bring commerce there to a halt a… 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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By Matt Bradley And Ali A. Nabhan BASRA, Iraq–Just past midnight, a chain-smoking Hussein al-Rashid, head of a local oil services company, received the phone call he had been waiting for all day. "We’ve got your guys," the voice over the phone told Mr. Rashid. "And we want $200,000." The man on the phone wasn’t an Islamist militant and the kidnapping of three of Mr. Rashid’s employees didn’t occur anywhere near the front lines of fighting between Islamic State and government forces. Rather, the men were taken hostage in Basra, Iraq’s third-largest city and the heart of its oil industry in the country’s predominantly Shiite south. Until last year, Basra was a secure haven in a country torn apart by war. But the armed thugs now in control of its streets and the crime wave sweeping the city illustrate how the conflict with Islamic State is rippling beyond the […]

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WASHINGTON—Preliminary U.S. tests show Islamic State fighters used mustard agent against Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in northern Iraq in at least one attack earlier this month, U.S. military officials said on Friday. If confirmed, the use of mustard agent in the Aug. 11 mortar attack on the Kurds in northern Iraq would be the second known instance in which Islamic State has used mustard agent on the battlefield. U.S. officials said last week that test results confirmed Islamic State used mustard agent against Kurdish forces in northern Syria in late July. The officials also suspect mustard agent or a similar blistering agent was used in an Aug. 13 attack against the Peshmerga in northern Iraq, but preliminary test results from that incident have yet to be announced. The preliminary results from the Aug. 11 mortar attack in northern Iraq were based a field test conducted after Peshmerga fighters brought fragments […]

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