Category: Iraq

PARIS Iraq’s prime minister on Tuesday accused the international coalition fighting Islamic State of not doing enough to tackle the group, and said important members such as Saudi Arabia are not curbing the flow of foreign fighters to his country. Western and Middle Eastern countries in the coalition are meeting this week in Paris. Part of their agenda is to persuade the Iraqi government to repair its relationship with Iraq’s Sunni minority. The meeting follows the Iraqi government’s biggest military setback in nearly a year. On May 17, Islamic State seized Ramadi from the weakened Iraqi army. The capital of the overwhelmingly Sunni Anbar province is just 90 km (55 miles) west of Baghdad. Since then, government troops and Shi’ite militias have been building up positions around the city. Many of Iraq’s minority Sunnis dislike hardline Sunni Islamic State but also fear the Shi’ite militias after years of bloody […]

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SINGAPORE Asia has given Iraq’s launch of its new Basra Heavy crude oil grade a poor reception after the No. 2 OPEC producer appears to have misjudged demand, supplying too much, too soon. Sellers of the new grade have struggled to find buyers, with at least one Malaysian-based trader taking a deep discount to offload 2 million barrels, while others have complained about a lack of pre-marketing and slow delivery of technical details to refineries. The problems, which have increased shipping and marketing costs for term buyers and Iraq’s equity partners in its southern oilfields, may hamper the country’s efforts to ramp up exports and could lead Asian buyers to look closely at Iranian oil if sanctions are lifted. "Asian refiners are conservative. You cannot bring new crude overnight and expect it to be taken up quickly," a trader with a western firm said. Iraq – which sells more […]

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PARIS — With Islamist militant fighters on the ground in Syria and Iraq moving faster than the international coalition arrayed against them, a meeting in Paris by coalition members on Tuesday seemed unlikely to reverse the momentum anytime soon. With the French and American governments playing host, 24 foreign ministers or their representatives have been meeting here in the aftermath of serious losses to the Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria last month and the possibility that more territory will be lost in the coming days. The group did not embrace any major changes and appeared set to continue on its current course, even though over the past few weeks Syria’s government had lost control of the strategically important city of Palmyra and the Iraqi government has lost control of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, to the Islamic State. Both of those cities have strategic and symbolic […]

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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 […]

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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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BAGHDAD — Car bombings struck two luxury hotels in Baghdad around midnight Thursday, amid the busy social swirl of the start of the weekend here. In total, 14 people were killed and 25 wounded, security official said. The bombings took place in the parking lots of the hotels, highlighting the ability of militants to maneuver around strict security measures. Foreigners frequently stay at the hotels.

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Workers operate a drilling rig at the West Qurna 2 oil field in Basra. (ALI ABU IRAQ/Iraq Oil Report/Metrography) About 150 local residents temporarily shut down access to Iraq’s super-giant West Qurna 2 oil field this week, protesting that they had not been given jobs protecting the project.The unarmed protesters dispersed peacefully on Tuesday after blocking access roads for the previous two days. Several workers at the field said nobody was able to enter or leave the facility, but production was not affected."We were supposed to go back to our families this afternoon, but protesters blocked the r… 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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Swedish energy company DNO said it plans to review spending plans in Kurdish north of Iraq as business climate improves. Logo courtesy: DNO OSLO, Norway, May 28 (UPI) — Norwegian energy company DNO said Thursday it plans to invest more on its assets in the Kurdish north of Iraq as the business cycle improves. "We are ramping up production, export and local sales following the recently completed Tawke capacity expansion," Executive Chairman Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani said in a statement. "We will dust off investment plans as our revenue stream continues to grow." DNO in a quarterly statement early this month said weak sales to the Kurdish market and the low price of oil forced it to cut capital spending on the back of reduced revenues. For first quarter 2015, production from the DNO-operated Tawke field in the north of Iraq was 104,925 barrels of oil per day, of which about […]

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Photo Iraqi civilians fleeing fighting in Ramadi crossed the Bzebiz Bridge, which offers passage into Baghdad from Anbar Province. Credit Karim Kadim/Associated Press AMIRIYAT FALLUJA, Iraq — On one side of a rickety bridge that spans a narrow stretch of the Euphrates River were panicked families on the run from Islamic State forces, hoping to escape Anbar Province and reach safety in Baghdad. On the other side were Iraqi Army officers and Shiite militiamen, under orders to keep the bridge closed because of fears that militants could slip in among the displaced civilians. “It’s like the other side is Europe and this is Asia,” said Ehab Talib, 27, who was waiting to meet relatives fleeing the fighting in Anbar, the Sunni-dominated region whose capital, Ramadi, recently fell to the Islamic State . With new waves of civilians fleeing violence in Anbar there are now more internally displaced Iraqis, nearly […]

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The Rumaila oilfield on Sept. 4, 2014, operated by BP and CNPC. (ESSAM AL-SUDANI/Reuters) Recommend 13 people recommend this. Sign Up to see what your friends recommend. Workers at Rumaila as well as other southern oil fields are pressing foreign oil companies and Iraqi oil officials to reverse their stance and adopt a non-industry standard work rotation. This is not the only demand from oil workers, who have for years put forward a series of union-backed demands to improve working conditions and receive bonus pay. Following a March protest at South Oil Company headquarters, the issue of shift scheduling now appears to be at the top of the agenda through… 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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