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U.S. Mobilizes Allies to Widen Assault on ISIS

WASHINGTON — The United States has begun to mobilize a broad coalition of allies behind potential American military action in Syria and is moving toward expanded airstrikes in northern Iraq, administration officials said on Tuesday. President Obama, the officials said, was broadening his campaign against the Sunni militants of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and nearing a decision to authorize airstrikes and airdrops of food and water around the northern Iraqi town of Amerli, home to members of Iraq’s Turkmen minority. The town of 12,000 has been under siege for more than two months by the militants. “Rooting out a cancer like ISIL won’t be easy, and it won’t be quick,” Mr. Obama said in a speech on Tuesday to the American Legion in Charlotte, N.C., using an alternative name for ISIS. He said that the United States was building a coalition to “take the fight to these barbaric […]

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Islamists in Iraq Rely on Mines, Booby Traps in Battlefield Strategy

Islamic State militants are using mines and IEDs to thwart Kurdish Peshmerga forces trying to dislodge them from positions in northern Iraq. WSJ’s Tamer El-Ghobashy reports from the scene. JALAWLA, Iraq—Islamic State insurgents have planted land mines and other explosives to stall a Kurdish push to retake this town, an unfolding battlefield strategy that foes describe as built on patience, the element of surprise and a willingness to take losses. The fighters borrowed the tactic from their predecessors, al Qaeda in Iraq, who used improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, to prevent U.S. forces from retaking ground during the decadelong war that ended in 2011. The strategy has proved effective. Last week, Iraqi troops were slowed by mines planted along highways into the city of Tikrit, causing a stalemate in a renewed counteroffensive against Islamic State fighters there. Repeated Iraqi military attempts to retake Tikrit, a city of about a […]

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DNO Targets Kurdish Oil Exports in Market Opened by U.S. Ruling

DNO ASA (DNO) , the oil producer focused on northern Iraq , said a U.S. court ruling has opened a market for Kurdish crude and it could make its first independent export sales by the end of the year at international prices. A U.S. district judge in Houston yesterday ruled that the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government can take 1 million barrels of crude ashore in Texas even though Iraq’s central government claims ownership of it. That’s “good news” for DNO, which has been cleared by the KRG to export oil independently, Executive Chairman Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani said. “That opens up a market, and we’ll walk into that market as well,” he said today in Stavanger, on Norway ’s west coast. “It’s not just a legal matter or political matter, it’s also a matter of having refineries take this oil, run it through their refineries and see how it works.” DNO, […]

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Insurgency Deepens Iraqi Ethnic, Sectarian Divides

Displaced people from the minority Yazidi sect, who fled from the violence in the Iraqi town of Gwer, wait to return at a check point.. Reuters GWAIR, Iraq—Sunni families in northern Iraq are being prevented from returning to their homes, suspected by their neighbors and Kurdish authorities who control the area of collaborating with the extremist group Islamic State. The offensive by the Sunni militants is threatening to reshape the demographics of once-mixed communities by dividing territory along ethnic and religious lines, Iraqi and Kurdish officials say. Kurds, Christians and other minorities were driven from their homes by the insurgents’ rapid advance. But even after Kurdish forces, aided by U.S. airstrikes, wrested back control of some of the towns, many are refusing to move back if their Sunni Arab neighbors are also allowed to return. Kurdish security forces have been screening Sunni Arabs for ties to Islamic State fighters […]

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Kurds Get Seizure Order Thrown Out for Texas Oil Tanker

The Kurdistan Regional Government can bring $100 million of crude ashore in Texas after a U.S. judge threw out a court order that would have required federal agents to seize and hold the cargo for the Iraqi Oil Ministry until a court there decided which government owns it. U.S. District Judge Gray Miller in Houston said he lacked authority under federal laws governing property stolen at sea to decide the dispute. Both Iraq’s central government and the regional government claim control of 1 million barrels of Kurdish crude waiting in a tanker moored in international waters off the Texas coast for almost a month. Miller ruled yesterday that Iraq’s national oil ministry lost control of the crude when the Kurdish government pumped it without authorization from oilfields in the northern part of the country. Iraq failed to convince Miller that the oil was misappropriated when it was loaded into […]

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Iraqi oil exports increased in July

Iraqi oil exports in July, including oil sent from the Turkish sea port of Ceyhan, were 4 percent higher than the previous month, a marketing company said. The Iraqi State Oil Marketing Organization said Monday a total of 75.7 million barrels of oil were exported from the country in July. Total quantities include oil sent from the southern Iraqi oil terminal in Basra and from the Turkish sea port of Ceyhan, SOMO said. July exports were 4 percent higher than the total for June. SOMO said three American companies — Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Phillips 66 — were among the 31 companies that received Iraqi oil last month. Asian economies received the bulk of the oil exported in July, though the organization didn’t break down quantities per destination. SOMO is the only entity authorized to export oil from Iraq, the federal government in Baghdad says. The semiautonomous Kurdish government […]

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Iran testing gas pipeline to Iraq

The first stage of a natural gas pipeline connecting Iran to Iraq is ready for testing, the head of an Iranian gas development company said. Alireza Gharibi, managing director of the Iranian Gas Engineering and Development Co., said a 60-mile pipeline crossing the Iranian border into Iraq is ready for water deliveries as part of an initial testing process. Once cleaning operations and testing are completed, the pipeline will be ready for initial exports of 176 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. "When this part of the pipeline becomes operational, additional pipeline loops will increase gas export to Iraq," he said Saturday. Iran said last week natural gas production is on the rise and on pace to reach 35 billion cubic feet in the next three years with help from the South Pars field. Iran has held out its vast gas resources as an option for a […]

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Iran Delays Oil Contracts Conference Until After Nuclear Talks

Iran is delaying by three months a conference to offer international companies rights to develop oil deposits there, allowing the London event to fall after negotiations on the country’s nuclear program are set to end. Foreign companies will be able to express interest in producing crude and natural gas in Iran “immediately” after a final nuclear deal is reached, said Mehdi Hosseini, head of the Oil Contracts Revision Committee. Iran and six global powers have given themselves until Nov. 24 to agree on limits to the Persian Gulf state’s nuclear program in return for lifting sanctions on the country. The London conference, previously scheduled for Nov. 3, will take place in late February, to allow companies to participate that would otherwise be barred by sanctions from dealing with Iran , Hosseini said. “We are very interested in seeing the international companies, especially the major companies, participate in that conference,” […]

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Islamic State renews push for Iraq oil field

The Islamic State group has launched a renewed push to seize Iraq’s main oil refinery north of Baghdad, battling security forces backed by air support, authorities and witnesses said. At least three Iraqi security personnel were killed, and seven others were injured in the fighting on Sunday, in which fighters attacked the Baiji refinery from three sides, sources told Al Jazeera. The attack on Sunday came as Iraq’s next-door neighbour Iran reiterated its support for the new Shia-led government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, with a visit from Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.    The fight over the oil field started overnight and continued into the next day, according to news reports. The Islamic State fighters have repeatedly sought to overrun the refinery, which once accounted for about 50 percent of Iraq’s supplies of refined oil products. While they have previously managed to enter the refinery compound, security forces were able to push them […]

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A look into heart of jihadist ‘caliphate’ in Syria, Iraq

News A look into heart of jihadist ‘caliphate’ in Syria, Iraq 23 Aug 2014 "What do you want to be? A jihadist, or to execute a martyrdom operation?" In the "caliphate" recently proclaimed by jihadists in Syria and Iraq, even young children are indoctrinated, and Sharia law is backed by the gun, according to a gripping documentary offering one of the first glimpses of life in Raqqa, power base of the so-called Islamic State (IS). Part 1 of a five-episode series, The Islamic State, filmed by Anglo-Palestinian journalist Medyan Dairieh was released Thursday by New York-based Vice News. The tone is set early: "Sharia can only be established with weapons," an IS fighter explains to Dairieh, who spent three weeks embedded with the radical Sunni group. Dairieh, toting a video camera, gained "unprecedented access" to the organization, Vice News said. In Raqqa, heavily-armed jihadists are seen celebrating on US […]

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