Category: Iraq

Islamist militia fighters killed at least 22 soldiers on Thursday during a surprise attack in which they used speedboats in a bid to seize some of Libya ’s main oil facilities, officials said. The fighters of the Libya Dawn militia attacked the port of Al Sidra, firing rockets from speedboats and setting an oil tank on fire, security officials said. Clashes also erupted in Surt, the officials said, but the militants were eventually repelled. The soldiers were from a battalion that is affiliated with the forces of a former general, Khalifa Hifter. General Hifter’s forces have been fighting alongside forces from the internationally recognized government of Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani against Islamist militants who have seized control of several cities, including Tripoli, the capital. A version of this brief appears in print on December 26, 2014, on page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: Libya: Fighters […]

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Iraq’s cabinet approved a smaller 2015 spending plan than the government expected because of the collapse in oil, which provides most government revenue. The budget, based on a $60 a barrel price for oil, stands at 123 trillion dinars ($103 billion), Saad Al-Hadithi, spokesman for the office of the prime minister, said by phone. The budget deficit was set at 23 trillion dinars and total revenue at 99.8 trillion dinars, including oil revenue of 84 trillion dinars, Obaid Mahal, deputy secretary general of the cabinet, said by phone. The 2015 budget had initially been set at 141 trillion dinars, and was 138.4 trillion dinars in 2013. “The reason behind the cut in the budget is because of the oil price drop, and curbing unnecessary spending,” Mudher Mohammed Saleh, economic adviser to Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi, said by phone. Iraq, home to the world’s fifth-largest crude reserves, is engulfed in […]

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BAGHDAD (AP) — A suicide bomber blew up himself on Wednesday among a group of pro-government, anti-Islamic State group Sunni militias near Baghdad, killing at least 22 people, a latest bold attack by militants seeking to undermine government efforts to fight extremists. The attacker managed to mingle with the militiamen who gathered at a military base in the town of Madain to receive their monthly payment, two police officers said. At least 15 of the dead were Sunni militiamen and the rest were soldiers, while 55 others were wounded, they said. The town is located about 20 kilometers (14 miles) south of Baghdad. The group, known as Sahwa or the Awakening Councils, is made up of Sunni militiamen who joined U.S. troops in the fight against al-Qaida during the height of Iraq’s insurgency in 2007 and 2008. They are viewed as traitors by the Sunni militants. Three medical officials […]

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Iraq’s Cabinet meets on Nov. 18, 2014. (Source: Iraqi Cabinet Media Office) By Published Wednesday, December 24th, 2014 Iraq’s Cabinet balanced a collapse in oil revenue while maintaining spending commitments needed to placate key constituents and keep up the fight against the so-called Islamic State (IS) militant group in a draft budget for 2015 that it approved Tuesday.The budget calls for spending of around 123 trillion Iraqi dinars (about $102.5 billion), said Abdul Qadir Omar, a member of the Parliament Finance Committee who received a copy of the approved draft.The draft budget will be put to Iraq’s…

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Oil Minister Adil Abdulmahdi tours the besieged Baiji refinery on Sept. 11, 2014, a day after formally taking office. (Source: Office of Adil Abdulmahdi) Iraq’s largest oil refinery still faces enormous obstacles before it can resume operations, one month after Iraqi forces regained control of the city of Baiji from insurgents led by the so-called Islamic State (IS) group."It could take more than a year to get it operating again," said a senior technical official at the refinery.Since the government chased IS militants from Baiji in mid November, Iraqi forces have consolidated positions in the refinery compound itself and key parts of Bai…

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An Isis fighter in Raqqa in the summer when the jihadis made huge territorial gains in Syria and Iraq Flagging morale, desertion and factionalism are starting to affect the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant , known as Isis, testing the cohesion of the jihadi force as its military momentum slows. Activists and fighters in parts of eastern Syria controlled by Isis said as military progress slows and focus shifts to governing the area, frustration has grown among militants who had been seen as the most disciplined and effective fighting force in the country’s civil war. The group hurtled across western Iraq and eastern Syria over the summer in a sudden offensive that shocked the world. Isis remains a formidable force: it controls swaths of territory and continues to make progress in western Iraq. But its fighters have reached the limit of discontented Sunni Muslim areas that they […]

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Workers clean a cooling system at the Kalak refinery, which is operated by the KAR Group. KAR is building the Hamdaniya refinery as part of its Production Sharing Contract with Ninewa province. (SEBASTIAN MEYER/Iraq Oil Report/Metrography) Kurdish oil company KAR Group has confirmed it signed a production sharing contract directly with the Ninewa provincial council in 2014, the latest provincial oil contract in Iraq and one that illustrates the deepening economic ties between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the embattled province.“In early 2014 we signed a production sharing agreement with the government of Ninewa for the Makhmour block,” Baz Karim, President of Kar Group, said in a presentation at the CWC Kur…

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BAGHDAD — Kurdish forces, backed by a surge of American airstrikes in recent days, recaptured a large swath of territory from Islamic State militants on Thursday, opening a path from the autonomous Kurdish region to Mount Sinjar in the west, near the Syrian border. The two-day offensive, which involved 8,000 fighters, known as pesh merga, was the largest one to date in the war against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, according to Kurdish officials. It was also a successful demonstration of President Obama’s strategy for battling the extremist group: American air power combined with local forces doing the fighting on the ground. A statement released Thursday night by the office of Masrour Barzani, the head of the Kurdistan Regional Security Council, called the operation “the single biggest military offensive against ISIS , and the most successful.” In August, a siege of Mount Sinjar, where thousands […]

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Oil tanks at Turkey’s Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, which is run by state-owned Petroleum Pipeline Corporation (BOTAS), where oil exports from the Iraqi central government and, separately, from the KRG, are sent. (UMIT BEKTAS/Reuters) Leaders from Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) are drawing red lines on oil policy that could put pressure on a fragile rapprochement with Baghdad.Kurdish Minister of Natural Resources Ashti Hawrami insisted Wednesday that the KRG will continue to export oil independently, and reasserted the KRG’s determination to control two major oil assets it seized in July, which were previously part of Baghdad’s oil portfolio."Our export is our right. If that is the reason for di…

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HOUSTON, Dec. 17 12/17/2014 The Rumaila Operating Organization (ROO)—a partnership of South Oil Co. , BP PLC , PetroChina Co. Ltd. , and Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO)—plans to increase production by 50% from Iraq’s giant Rumaila oil field to 2.1 million b/d by the end of the decade. The number represents an increase of 800,000 b/d from current production and will account for 3% of global oil production, according to BP’s Energy Outlook 2035. The agreement was made under a recently revised technical service contract signed by the partners and extended to 2034. Rumaila in September produced its 2 billionth bbl under the contract, which was initially signed in 2009. Of the estimated 70 billion bbl of oil initially in place, 14 billion bbl have been recovered. Assuming a conservative recovery factor of 40%, the partnership estimates there are 20 billion bbl still available for recovery. More […]

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