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Islamic State torches oil field near Tikrit as militia advance

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Islamic State militants have set fire to oil wells northeast of the city of Tikrit to obstruct an assault by Shi’ite militiamen and Iraqi soldiers trying to drive them from the Sunni Muslim city and surrounding towns, a witness said. The witness and a military source said Islamic State fighters ignited the fire at the Ajil oil field to shield themselves from attack by Iraqi military helicopters. The offensive is the biggest Iraqi forces have yet mounted against IS, which has declared an Islamic caliphate on captured territory in Iraq and Syria and spread fear across the region by slaughtering Arab and Western hostages and killing or kidnapping members of religious minorities like Yazidis and Christians. Black smoke could be seen rising from the oil field since Wednesday afternoon, said the witness, who accompanied Iraqi militia and soldiers as they advanced on Tikrit from the east. […]

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U.S. Strategy in Iraq Increasingly Relies on Iran

WASHINGTON — At a time when President Obama is under political pressure from congressional Republicans over negotiations to rein in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, a startling paradox has emerged: Mr. Obama is becoming increasingly dependent on Iranian fighters as he tries to contain the Islamic State militant group in Iraq and Syria without committing American ground troops. In the four days since Iranian troops joined 30,000 Iraqi forces to try to wrest Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit back from Islamic State control, American officials have said the United States is not coordinating with Iran, one of its fiercest global foes, in the fight against a common enemy. That may be technically true. But American war planners have been closely monitoring Iran’s parallel war against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, through a range of channels, including conversations on radio frequencies that each side knows the other is […]

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KRG receives first 2015 budget payment

A worker walks on an oil pipeline at the Khurmala Dome formation of the Kirkuk oil field on Dec. 13, 2013. (STRINGER/Reuters) The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has received its first 2015 budget payment from Iraq’s federal treasury.Ahmed Abdulrahman, spokesman for KRG Minister of Finance Rebaz Hamlan, confirmed that 250 billion Iraqi dinars ($208.3 million) was received on Thursday, and went toward making overdue payments to public sector employees."We used the money to complete December payments of six ministries, the three presidencies and retired civil servants," Abdulrahman said.Under Iraq’s 20…

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Iraqi Campaign to Drive ISIS From Tikrit Reveals Tensions With U.S.

BAGHDAD — Tensions between Iraq and the United States over how to battle the Islamic State broke into the open on Tuesday, as Iraqi officials declared that they would fight on their own timetable with or without American help, and as United States warplanes conspicuously sat out the biggest Iraqi counteroffensive yet amid concerns over Iran’s prominent role. On Monday, Iraq launched a politically sensitive operation to oust Islamic State militants from Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein, without seeking American approval, officials said. Even as Iraq was taking a first step into a bigger battle to oust the Islamic State from the northern city of Mosul, it was also signaling that its alliance with the United States might be more fraught than officials had let on. American officials, for their part, voiced unease with the prominent role of Iran and its allied Shiite militias in the Tikrit operation. […]

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Iraq Troops Enter Tikrit, Drive Islamic State From Oilfields

(Bloomberg) — Iraqi forces entered the central city of Tikrit in an attempt to drive out Islamic State militants, and regained control of two oilfields in the region, a local official said. Iraqi forces entered Tikrit from the north and south, and took control of several sites including the police academy and hospital, Khalid al-Khazraji, deputy chief of security in Salahuddin province, said by phone. Another three or four days may be needed to gain full control of the city, he said. The Ajeel and Hamrin-Alas oilfields in Salahuddin were recaptured on Tuesday and are under the control of soldiers backed by local militias and tribes,al-Khazraji said. Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown, fell to Islamic State during its initial surge of conquest in northern Iraq in June last year. Iraq’s government this week announced a major military offensive to recapture it, with army units backed by pro-Iranian Shiite militias. While […]

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Iraq seeks bond revenue to make delayed IOC payments

Iraqi Minister of Oil Adil Abd al-Mahdi (R) takes a tour of Basra Gulf export platforms on Sept. 21, 2014, (HAIDAR MOHAMMED ALI/AFP/Getty Images) Iraq is planning to borrow billions of dollars to make payments to international oil companies, which have been delayed due to a severe financial crisis."The Oil Ministry has the right to ask his excellency the prime minister and the minister of finance to issue treasury bonds worth $12 billion," said Oil Minister Adil Abd al-Mahdi at a press conference Sunday. "We have started this process, in order to cover the payments to the companies."Some oil companies have not received payments th…

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Exports, revenues increase in February

Iraqi workers tend to the Tuba oil field in Basra on Feb. 19, 2015. (ESSAM AL-SUDANI/Reuters) Iraq’s oil exports increased in February, despite poor weather in the south, giving the country a needed boost in revenues.Oil exports from southern Iraq actually slipped compared to January, according to Oil Ministry data, but that decrease was offset by higher sales through the Turkish port of Ceyhan, of oil exported in collaboration with the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).A turnaround in oil prices also helped relieve some pressure on Iraq’s budget.Iraqi crude of …

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Iraq Begins Offensive to Recapture Tikrit From ISIS

BAGHDAD — The Iraqi military, alongside thousands of Shiite militia fighters, began a large-scale offensive on Monday to retake the city of Tikrit from the Islamic State, a battle that could either become a pivotal fight in the campaign to reclaim north and west Iraq or deepen the country’s bloody sectarian divide. Iraqi state television announced the beginning of the offensive Monday morning, a day after Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited the forces massed on Tikrit’s outskirts and delivered a speech in which he said “zero hour” for the liberation of Tikrit was at hand. While visiting Samarra, a town near Tikrit, on Sunday, Mr. Abadi promised amnesty to local residents who had been forced to join the Islamic State. But he said it was the last chance for them to lay down their arms and assist the security forces in pushing out the militants. It is not the […]

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U.S. Steers Clear of Tikrit, Cites Iran Role in Support of Iraqis

ENLARGE Iraqi forces and allied militias take position in the northern part of Diyala province as they take part in an assault to retake the city of Tikrit from Islamic State jihadists Monday. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images WASHINGTON—Iraq’s latest push to retake the Sunni city of Tikrit from Islamic State extremists has thrown a new spotlight on the role being assumed by Iran in assisting Baghdad in its fight to regain control of the country. U.S. officials said Iran is supporting the offensive to retake Tikrit , supplying artillery, rocket fire and aerial drones. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, fighters were on the ground with Iraqi units, mostly operating artillery and rocket batteries, according to a U.S. military official. At the Pentagon on Monday, Col. Steve Warren, a Defense Department spokesman, said the U.S. wasn’t providing assistance in the fight to retake Tikrit. The U.S. hasn’t conducted airstrikes […]

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Turkey eyes oil in northern Iraq

Sign up for our daily Energy Newsletter Turkish government says it has deals in hand to conduct oil exploration in the Kurdish north of Iraq. Photo courtesy by: Gulf Keystone Petroleum. ANKARA, Turkey, March 2 (UPI) — Agreements with Iraqi administrations open the door for Turkish oil exploration in the Kurdish north, the Turkish energy minister said Monday. "We have agreements with Baghdad and [the government in] northern Iraq," Turkish energy minister Taner Yildiz said. "In the frame of these agreements, we will explore for oil there." The minister offered no estimate of the reserve potential in targeted fields in the Kurdish north of Iraq, nor did he outline which companies would carry out the work. Though suspended in response to payment rows with the Kurdistan Regional Government, British energy company Gulf Keystone Petroleum has shipped tens of thousands of barrels of oil across the border to Turkey. Yildiz […]

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