Category: Iraq

Breaking developments and ground-truth updates from all of Iraq’s provinces. For even more in-depth insight into Iraq, IOR’s Custom Research Services can help. An oil tanker docks at the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan in Turkey. (STAFF/Iraq Oil Report/Metrography) Recommend Sign Up to see what your friends recommend. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is expecting to receive its third monthly budget payment of the year from Iraq’s federal government on Thursday.The expected transfer of $439 million represents the largest payment made under a cooperative oil export and revenue sharing agreement between the KRG and Baghdad, embedded in the 2015 budget law.The money had been expected earlier this week, but KRG Deputy Finance Minister Fazil Nabi said the money will now be delivered Thursday."T…

Click here to view full article at www.iraqoilreport.com

Photo Iraqi forces patrolling a street in Tikrit last week. Credit Ahmad Al-Rubaye/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Emboldened as they mop up the last Islamic State forces in the city of Tikrit, Iraqi military leaders are already vowing to follow up that operation with a much more ambitious one: marching into the vast Sunni heartland in western Iraq to root out some of the most significant militant strongholds. Iraqi and American officials say some progress in that region, Anbar Province, will be necessary before a serious effort is mounted to retake the northern city of Mosul from the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. But just how that can be accomplished is a source of concern. Despite boasts by the Shiite militias that they were ready for Anbar, some Iraqi and American officials say it would be disastrous for a mostly Shiite-led force to begin assaulting towns […]

Click here to view full article at www.nytimes.com

Continue reading the main story Video Play Video|8:19 Surviving an ISIS Massacre Surviving an ISIS Massacre ISIS massacred hundreds of Iraqi military recruits in June 2014. Ali Hussein Kadhim survived. This is his improbable story. [Includes graphic images.] By Mike Shum, Greg Campbell, Adam B. Ellick and Mona El-Naggar on Publish Date September 3, 2014. Photo by Bryan Denton for The New York Times. BAGHDAD — Iraqi officials have begun exhuming bodies from a series of mass graves containing some of the nearly 1,700 Iraqi Air Force cadets massacred by the Islamic State in June. “We’re still digging but we don’t know how many graves there are yet,” Kamil Amin, the spokesman for the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry, said on Tuesday. “We’re expecting big numbers.” So far, he said, officials had found 11 mass graves, each containing dozens of bodies, all located in the sprawling complex of palaces in […]

Click here to view full article at www.nytimes.com

Smoke rises from the Ajil oil field as Shia militiamen gather in al-Hadidiya, south of Tikrit, on March 6, 2015. (THAIER AL-SUDANI/Reuters) Recommend 2 people recommend this. Sign Up to see what your friends recommend. Persistent attacks are preventing Iraq from re-starting production at Ajil and Hamrin, two northern oil fields that were recently recaptured from the Islamic State (IS) militant group.The fields represent a small fraction of Iraq’s overall production capacity, but the inability of pro-government forces to establish security underscores the broader difficulty of resurrecting northern Iraq’s energy sector, which includes vital facilities such as the Baiji refinery and infrastructure like the …

Click here to view full article at www.iraqoilreport.com

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the Baghdad government would work with Kurdish authorities to liberate the northern province of Nineveh from Islamic State militants. During his first visit to the Kurdistan region since becoming Prime Minister last year, Abadi said Baghdad and Erbil faced a common enemy and would improve ties to help confront the threat. "Our visit to Erbil today is to coordinate and cooperate on a joint plan to liberate the people of Nineveh," Abadi said at a joint news conference with Kurdish President Massoud Barzani on Monday. Abadi declined to lay out a timetable for the plan to retake Nineveh, of which Mosul is capital, in order not to lose the "element of surprise". The trip comes less than a week after Islamic State militants were driven out of the city of Tikrit by Iraqi forces including Shi’ite militia, backed by coalition […]

Click here to view full article at www.reuters.com

Shia militias have helped fight Isis, but many worry they are pushing their own brand of sectarianism Iraqi security forces in Tikrit after pushing Isis out of the city with help from Shiite militiamen I t was a trip he took often, a 90-minute drive from his mansion on the outskirts of Babel province to the capital. But something went wrong around the time he was stopped at one of many checkpoints in southern Baghdad. Exactly what transpired remains unclear, but the night ended with Qassem Jenabi, a prominent Sunni tribal leader , his son Mohamed and their five bodyguards dead, their bullet-riddled bodies dumped next to their car. Nearly $7,000 in cash was untouched, and Mr Jenabi’s nephew, a member of Iraq’s parliament, was let go, as if the killers did not want the international attention that would come with murdering an elected official. “The militias did this,” […]

Click here to view full article at www.ft.com

Shia militias have helped fight Isis, but many worry they are pushing their own brand of sectarianism Iraqi security forces in Tikrit after pushing Isis out of the city with help from Shiite militiamen I t was a trip he took often, a 90-minute drive from his mansion on the outskirts of Babel province to the capital. But something went wrong around the time he was stopped at one of many checkpoints in southern Baghdad. Exactly what transpired remains unclear, but the night ended with Qassem Jenabi, a prominent Sunni tribal leader , his son Mohamed and their five bodyguards dead, their bullet-riddled bodies dumped next to their car. Nearly $7,000 in cash was untouched, and Mr Jenabi’s nephew, a member of Iraq’s parliament, was let go, as if the killers did not want the international attention that would come with murdering an elected official. “The militias did this,” […]

Click here to view full article at www.ft.com

Iraqi Oil Ministry says poor weather in and around port city of Basra curtailed full export potential. File Photo by UPI/Shutterstock/tcly. BAGHDAD, April 6 (UPI) — Iraqi oil exports of around 92 million barrels per day last month were the highest yet this year, with most of that leaving southern ports, the government said. Iraqi Oil Ministry spokesman Asim Jihad said total exports for March were 92.4 million barrels, which is the highest for any month yet this year. Roughly 90 percent of all exports leave the country through the southern port city of Basra. Most of the rest was shipped across the border to Turkish ports on the Mediterranean Sea. The spokesman said bad weather in and around Basra curtailed some of the export potential and the ministry was working to make up for any shortages. According to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, total Iraqi oil production […]

Click here to view full article at www.upi.com

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) – On April 1, the city of Tikrit was liberated from the extremist group Islamic State. The Shi’ite-led central government and allied militias, after a month-long battle, had expelled the barbarous Sunni radicals. Then, some of the liberators took revenge. Near the charred, bullet-scarred government headquarters, two federal policemen flanked a suspected Islamic State fighter. Urged on by a furious mob, the two officers took out knives and repeatedly stabbed the man in the neck and slit his throat. The killing was witnessed by two Reuters correspondents.  The incident is now under investigation, interior ministry spokesman Brigadier General Saad Maan told Reuters. Since its recapture two days ago, the Sunni city of Tikrit has been the scene of violence and looting. In addition to the killing of the extremist combatant, Reuters correspondents also saw a convoy of Shi’ite paramilitary fighters – the government’s partners in liberating the […]

Click here to view full article at www.reuters.com

Iraq’s biggest oil exports in more than three decades and winter winds are helping to keep shipping rates at a six-year high as a four-mile line of supertankers waits to load the nation’s crude. There are 22 of the industry’s biggest tankers, or almost 5 percent of the fleet, waiting to collect cargoes from the Basra Oil Terminal in the Persian Gulf, from where most of Iraq’s crude is shipped. The daily rate for supertankers transporting crude from the Middle East to Japan rose to $51,042 on Thursday, bringing the average for this year to $61,306, data from the Baltic Exchange in London show. Iraq’s oil output is rising faster than any other nation in OPEC as supplies from its southern oil province expand even as Islamic State fighters seize parts of the north. Tankers leaving Basra in the past week waited an average of 16 days, ship tracking […]

Click here to view full article at www.bloomberg.com