Category: Iraq

US senators introduced a trio of bills on May 11 to establish or increase shares of federal revenue with states that have federal oil and gas leases off their coasts. Measures sponsored by Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chair Lisa Murkowski (R-Alas.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), and Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) will be discussed with 23 others dealing with energy supplies during a May 19 committee hearing. The bills would establish offshore revenue sharing in areas adjacent to their sponsors’ states. Warner’s bill, S. 1279 , differs from the other two because it’s bipartisan. Cosponsors are Virginia’s other US Senator, Timothy M. Kaine (D), as well as Republicans from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Murkowski’s bill, S. 1278 , includes a provision that directs 2.5% of qualified revenue for Alaska’s higher education institutions and workforce investment boards to provide training programs for pipeline and environmental management employees. Another 2.5% […]

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WASHINGTON The use of Shi’ite militias to try to take back the Iraqi city of Ramadi from Islamic State risks unleashing more sectarian bloodletting, current and former U.S. officials said, but Washington and Baghdad appear to have few other options. The prospect of Iranian-backed militias leading efforts to retake Ramadi underlines Washington’s dwindling options to defeat Islamic State in Iraq, with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s grip on power weak, a national army still in its infancy and Tehran increasingly assertive. Islamic State’s capture of Ramadi, despite months of U.S.-led air strikes and military advice, marked a fresh low for the shattered Iraqi army, which beat a chaotic retreat from the city over the weekend. Abadi immediately turned to the Shi’ite militia groups, backed by Iran, which together have become the most powerful military force in Iraq since the national army first collapsed last June in the face of sweeping […]

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Photo Iraqis displaced when Islamic State fighters took control of Ramadi last week waited to cross a bridge on their way to Baghdad. Credit Ahmed Ali/European Pressphoto Agency WASHINGTON — Islamic State fighters used a sandstorm to help seize a critical military advantage in the early hours of the terrorist group’s attack on the provincial Iraqi capital of Ramadi last week, helping to set in motion an assault that forced Iraqi security forces to flee, current and former American officials said Monday. The sandstorm delayed American warplanes and kept them from launching airstrikes to help the Iraqi forces, as the Islamic State fighters evidently anticipated. The fighters used the time to carry out a series of car bombings followed by a wave of ground attacks in and around the city that eventually overwhelmed the American-backed Iraqi forces. Once the storm subsided, Islamic State and Iraqi forces were intermingled in […]

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Islamic State The Iraqi government is reported to be sending Iran-backed Shia militias to Ramadi to recapture the city seized by Islamic State (IS) militants on Sunday. About 500 people are reported to have died when the Iraqi military abandoned positions in the city – only 70 miles (112km) west of Baghdad. A regional government official spoke of people fleeing Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, "in great numbers". But the US has said it is confident the capture of Ramadi can be reversed. Speaking in South Korea, Secretary of State John Kerry said: "I am convinced that as the forces are redeployed and as the days flow in the weeks ahead that’s going to change." The Shia militias, known as the Popular Mobilisation (Hashid Shaabi), were key to the recapture from IS of another city, Tikrit, north of Baghdad, two months ago. But their use has raised concern […]

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Photo Iraqi security forces withdrawing from Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, on Sunday. As the city fell to the Islamic State, militants from the group carried out executions of people loyal to the government. Credit Associated Press BAGHDAD — The last Iraqi security forces fled Ramadi on Sunday, as the city fell completely to the militants of the Islamic State, who ransacked the provincial military headquarters, seizing a large store of weapons, and killed people loyal to the government, according to security officials and tribal leaders. The fall of Ramadi, despite intensified American airstrikes in recent weeks in a bid to save the city, represented the biggest victory so far this year for the Islamic State, which has declared a caliphate, or Islamic state, in the vast areas of Syria and Iraq that it controls. The defeat also laid bare the failed strategy of the Iraqi government, which […]

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BAGHDAD Islamic State militants said they had taken full control of the western Iraqi city of Ramadi on Sunday in the biggest defeat for the Baghdad government since last summer. In a statement, the group said it had seized tanks and killed "dozens of apostates", its description for members of the Iraqi security forces. Ramadi is the capital of Iraq’s western Anbar province, which is dominated by Sunni Muslims. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi signed off on the deployment of Shi’ite militias to attempt to seize back the area, a move he previously resisted for fear of provoking a sectarian backlash. Earlier, security sources said government forces evacuated a key military base after it came under attack by the insurgents, who had already taken one of the last districts still holding out. It was the biggest victory for Islamic State in Iraq since security forces and Shi’ite paramilitary groups began […]

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Photo Iraqis prepared to leave Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, some 70 miles west of Baghdad, on Friday amid an advance by Islamic State fighters. Credit Associated Press BAGHDAD — In a major setback for the Iraqi government’s efforts to defend its hold on Ramadi, a crucial regional capital, Islamic State militants conquered the city’s government sector on Friday, raising their black flag over the main compound before setting fire to the building, local officials said. The new jihadist assault began under the cover of darkness late Thursday, starting with a wave of suicide attacks by clean-shaven fighters driving armored Humvees and dressed in Iraqi Army uniforms. As fighters for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, advanced on Friday, there were reports of massacres. Sheikh Omar Shihan al-Alwani, a tribal leader whose men have been fighting the Islamic State there, said more than a dozen […]

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A tanker loads Kirkuk crude at the Turkish port of Ceyhan. (STAFF/Iraq Oil Report) Iraqi Oil Minister Adil Abd al-Mahdi travelled to Erbil Wednesday in an apparent attempt to salvage a cooperative oil export and revenue sharing agreement, after the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) raised objections to a smaller-than-expected April budget payment.KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani expressed strong dissatisfaction after Baghdad’s monthly budget transfer fell to just 488.7 billion Iraqi dinars ($407.25 million*) for April – a month when Kurdistan’s contribution to fed…

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A worker climbs a drilling rig at the Rumaila oil field. (BEN VAN HEUVELEN/Iraq Oil Report) Recommend 7 people recommend this. Sign Up to see what your friends recommend. At Rumaila, Iraq’s most prolific oil field, the development budget has been slashed this year by $1 billion – the latest sign that Iraq is tempering its long-term oil production ambitions.Even as the country works to raise production and export capacity – Iraq sold record amounts of oil in March and April – the increases are smaller than many anticipated, including Iraqi policymakers. Their ambitions have been chastened by reduced oil prices, a financial crisis, infrastructure delays a…

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ENLARGE Sunni recruits take part in their first training session to join an Iraqi government force that will fight Islamic State extremists, on Friday at a base in the town of Amriyat Fallujah. Photo: ahmad al-rubaye/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images AMRIYAT FALLUJAH, Iraq—Iraq’s Shiite-led government has begun training Sunni tribal fighters here in the western province of Anbar, in an urgent U.S.-backed initiative to stem recent advances by Islamic State. The setbacks in Anbar have exposed the need for trusted and equipped Sunni fighters to help turn momentum against Islamic State and dry up the extremists’ pool of potential recruits. “When the government fails, people turn to Islamic State,” said Mohammad Abu Risha, a young tribal sheik from Anbar who commands 150 fighters. “The tribes don’t trust the government, and the government doesn’t trust the tribes.” Mr. Abu Risha, speaking at an inaugural ceremony for the Anbar training program in Amriyat […]

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