Category: Iraq

Australian Defence Force planes Australia has received a “general request” surrounding a potential military role in Iraq and is “considering what we may be able to make available”, Tony Abbott has told parliament. The prime minister raised the prospect of a greater role for Australia in countering the advance of Islamic State (Isis) in an update on Wednesday. He did not elaborate on the nature of the general request, but the government has previously signalled that it was prepared to consider making Australian Super Hornets available for US-led air strikes on Isis targets in Iraq. The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has participated in humanitarian airdrops of supplies to Iraqi people trapped by Isis. The ADF also announced on Wednesday that it had completed a mission to deliver arms for use by Kurdish Peshmerga forces fighting Isis in northern Iraq. Australian political leaders expressed their revulsion at the emergence of […]

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| License Photo Canadian energy company Oryx Petroleum said "tangible improvements" in the Kurdish north of Iraq mean it can return to work at the Hawler license area. The company in June sold its first volumes of crude oil from the Demir Dagh reserve area to the domestic market. Most of the company’s work there was secured from violence, but Chief Executive Officer Michael Ebsary said operations had experienced a short interruption . "We are very pleased that tangible improvements to the security environment in the Kurdistan Region have enabled us to resume all activities at our core asset, the Demir Dagh field," he said in a statement Wednesday. The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office said Wednesday it was no longer advising against all travel to the Kurdish capital, Erbil, though much of northwestern Iraq is considered too dangerous for British nationals . The rise of the Islamic State, […]

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Russian energy company said oil from the Badra field in southern Iraq is making its way to the Persian Gulf for exports. The company, the oil arm of Russian gas company Gazprom, brought Badra online in December and testing of new pipeline infrastructure to the export terminal at Basra began in May. Now, the company said, the field is sending 15,000 barrels of oil per day to the southern port city. "Over the period of just a few years, a consortium of companies led by Gazprom Neft has fully prepared Badra, one of the most complex geological field structures in Iraq, for full-scale commercial development," Alexander Dyukov , Gazprom Neft board chairman, said in a statement Monday. "This is the first major international project in the upstream sector the company has implemented from scratch." In June, the company started preliminary oil production from the Badra oil field in Iraq, […]

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BAGHDAD (AP) — An international rights group says Islamic State militants carried out a mass killing of hundreds of Iraqi soldiers captured when the extremists overran a military base north of Baghdad in June. Human Rights Watch said Wednesday that new evidence indicates the Islamic State group killed between 560 and 770 men captured at Camp Speicher, near the city of Tikrit. The New York-based watchdog says the number of slain Iraqi soldiers is several times higher than previously reported. Earlier, Human Rights Watch said between 160 and 190 men were killed. Human Rights Watch says the new number is based on analysis of new satellite imagery, militant videos and a survivor’s account. In June, the Islamic State group claimed it had "executed" about 1,700 soldiers and military personnel captured from Camp Speicher.

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The semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government last week declared victory in a Texas court case involving the status of oil loaded onto the vessel United Kalavrvta, circling currently near the port city of Galveston. The Iraqi Oil Ministry published a letter saying the KRG was making misleading statements on the case. The court’s decision was "quite narrow," the ministry said, and does nothing to prevent U.S. authorities from seizing what Baghdad said is illegal cargo. "The U.S. market is far from being open for illegal KRG exports," it said. Both sides make competing claims over whether or not Kurdish oil exports are legal. The U.S. government has sided with Iraq, saying Baghdad has exclusive rights to determine exports. The issue over United Kalavrvta, however, is a commercial matter , Washington said. Baghdad said an independent Iraqi court is the best forum to settle the dispute. It added, however, it has […]

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BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel told lawmakers on Monday that her government had decided to break with a taboo on delivering weapons to conflict zones because Germany and all of Europe faced a security threat from the extremists of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Ms. Merkel and top ministers decided Sunday to deliver thousands of machine guns, as well as antitank missiles and armored vehicles, to Kurdish forces battling ISIS in northern Iraq. The deliveries — from existing German Army stocks, and worth an estimated 70 million euros, or almost $92 million — will take place in stages in the coming weeks, the Defense Ministry said. On what was the 75th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Poland, Ms. Merkel went before Parliament on Monday to justify the arms decision. She evoked scenes of mass terrorism and killings in the Middle East, and said of ISIS, “Anything […]

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BAGHDAD — With American bombs raining down from the sky, Shiite militia fighters aligned with Iran battled Sunni extremists over the weekend, punching through their defenses to break the weekslong siege of Amerli, a cluster of farming villages whose Shiite residents faced possible slaughter. The fight in northern Iraq appeared to be the first time American warplanes and militias backed by Iran had worked with a common purpose on a battlefield against militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, even though the Obama administration said there was no direct coordination with the militias. Should such military actions continue, they could signal a dramatic shift for the United States and Iran, which have long vied for control in Iraq. They could also align the interests of the Americans with their longtime sworn enemies in the Shiite militias, whose fighters killed many United States soldiers during the long occupation […]

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Related Iraqi forces entered the town of Amirli, breaking a siege imposed by Islamic State militants that lasted for more than two months, a senior Shiite-Muslim cleric said. “People are celebrating the arrival of the forces by firing in the air,” Sheikh Jaafar Jasim, representative of Iraq ’s top Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, said by phone from Amirli, 182 kilometers (114 miles) north of Baghdad . Seven Iraqi government troops and two members of the Kurdish forces known as the peshmerga were killed in the attack, according to the health office in the northern city of Kirkuk. The offensive to free the town was preceded by U.S. airstrikes at Islamic State positions. U.S., U.K., Australian and as well Iraqi forces also dropped aid to the residents of the Shiite-dominated town. Iraqi government forces and peshmerga fighters are pushing back against the al-Qaeda breakaway group with the help […]

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A tanker carrying 1 million barrels of disputed Kurdish oil remains off Texas , according to the vessel’s operator. The United Kalavryta, which left Ceyhan, Turkey , on June 23 and arrived off the coast of Galveston July 26, couldn’t be detected earlier this week, with no updates from the tanker’s Automated Identification System’s transponder from early Aug. 26 until today. The tanker is caught up in a protracted legal fight in Iraq over rights to Kurdish oil production and billions of dollars in overdue payments claimed by the Kurds. The U.S. government recognizes Kurdistan as part of Iraq. While a federal judge this week lifted an order that had authorized the seizure of the cargo if it came into U.S. waters, Iraq has more legal options available. “The M/T United Kalavryta is still anchored off Galveston awaiting charterer’s discharge orders,” Lygia Pirounaki, a spokeswoman for Marine Management Services […]

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