Category: Iraq

Departing Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki speaks during an interview in Baghdad on Jan. 12. Reuters BAGHDAD—Iraq’s outgoing prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, appears to have dropped his quixotic struggle to remain in power over the past week and is resigned instead to remaining a member of parliament insulated from prosecution. Fears that Mr. Maliki might play the spoiler in the new government have largely receded since his initial reaction to the appointment of Haider al-Abadi to replace him. The night before Mr. Abadi’s appointment , Mr. Maliki called out his security forces in Baghdad in what looked like preparations for a coup. Now Mr. Maliki meets with Mr. Abadi daily and advises him about the formation of a new cabinet, said Hussein Al-Marabi, a parliamentarian from the Shiite Islamist Fadhila Party. However other leaders of Shiite parties said Mr. Maliki doesn’t take part in the negotiations on forming a […]

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Shipments of Iraqi Kurdish oil resumed from the Turkish terminal Ceyhan today as the Spanish-flagged tanker Ultimate Freedom completed loading and prepared to depart, according to an official with knowledge of the situation who asked not to be identified, citing policy. The tanker loaded some 950,000 barrels and is expected to leave Ceyhan shortly, the official said by phone. Oil flow from northern Iraq restarted last week after a pause of more than two weeks while Iraqi Kurds installed a booster station to speed up the flow through the pipeline. The Malta-flagged Phoenix AN and the Greek-flagged United Carrier tankers were on their way to Ceyhan on the Mediterranean cost to pick up some 250,000 and 500,000 barrels of Kurdish oil, respectively, the official said. The Kurdish regional government’s press officer didn’t answer phone calls seeking comment today. Turkey has ignored objections by Iraq’s central government, which says the […]

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BAGHDAD—Militants killed 65 members of Iraq’s Sunni minority in two attacks on Friday, one of them on a mosque, further inflaming sectarian tensions and imperiling an already fragile effort to form a unity government. The attacks, which Sunni officials blamed on Shiite militia members, came as the governments in Baghdad and Washington are trying to forge a broad alliance against the militant forces of the Islamic State, the Sunni-led insurgency that has seized huge swaths of the country since June. Within hours of the separate attacks in the province of Diyala north of Baghdad, Iraq’s Sunni political parties pulled out of coalition talks to register their anger over what they characterized as state-backed retribution against the country’s main religious minority. Leaders of three of the largest Sunni electoral blocs announced they would suspend negotiations to form a new cabinet until the perpetrators of the attacks, which also injured 17 […]

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BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi Shi’ite militiamen machine gunned minority Sunni Muslims in a village mosque on Friday, killing dozens just as Baghdad was trying to build a cross-community government to fight Sunni militants whose rise has alarmed Western powers. A morgue official in Diyala province north of Baghdad said 68 people had been killed in the sectarian attack staged on the Muslim day of prayer. Ambulances took the bodies 60 km (40 miles) to the provincial capital of Baquba, where Iranian-trained Shi’ite militias are powerful and act with impunity. Attacks on mosques are acutely sensitive and have in the past unleashed a deadly series of revenge killings and counter attacks in Iraq, where violence has returned to the levels of 2006-2007, the peak of a sectarian civil war. Two influential Sunni politicians, Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq and Parliament Speaker Salim al-Jibouri, quickly suspended participation in talks with the […]

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BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi Shi’ite militiamen machine gunned minority Sunni Muslims in a village mosque on Friday, killing dozens just as Baghdad was trying to build a cross-community government to fight Sunni militants whose rise has alarmed Western powers. A morgue official in Diyala province north of Baghdad said 68 people had been killed in the sectarian attack staged on the Muslim day of prayer. Ambulances took the bodies 60 km (40 miles) to the provincial capital of Baquba, where Iranian-trained Shi’ite militias are powerful and act with impunity. Attacks on mosques are acutely sensitive and have in the past unleashed a deadly series of revenge killings and counter attacks in Iraq, where violence has returned to the levels of 2006-2007, the peak of a sectarian civil war. Two influential Sunni politicians, Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq and Parliament Speaker Salim al-Jibouri, quickly suspended participation in talks with the […]

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Iraq ’s Kurds, who have defied the central government by selling oil independently, are working to quadruple the capacity of their export pipeline within months, according to an official with knowledge of the situation. The Kurdistan Regional Government, or KRG, more than doubled daily capacity to 300,000 barrels on its pipeline to Turkey as of yesterday with installation of a new booster station at Fishkabur, the official said, asking not to be named because of policy. The region is considering a fourth booster to allow delivery of as much as 500,000 barrels a day to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan within as little as three months, he said. The KRG didn’t answer phone calls to its press office outside working hours today. The KRG’s efforts to export their own crude has provoked legal action by authorities in Baghdad and fanned speculation that the semi-autonomous region will pursue greater independence. […]

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Aug. 22 (Bloomberg) –- Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government must wait awhile longer for a U.S. judge to decide if he has authority to let federal agents seize $100 million worth of Kurdish crude waiting in a tanker off the Texas coast. Lawyers for the Iraqi Ministry of Oil convinced a magistrate judge last month to issue an arrest warrant for the 1 million-barrel cargo if the tanker enters U.S. territorial waters. That order would let U.S. marshals store the oil ashore at Iraqi expense until the dispute is resolved. U.S. District Judge Gray Miller, who now presides over the case, told lawyers at a hearing today in Houston federal court that he needs more time for his decision, which will turn in large part on where and when Iraq lost control of the oil. If control of the crude changed when it was loaded onto the tanker […]

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Turkish Energy Minister called for patience after a state-run energy company suspended drilling operations in Iraq as a security precaution. Eight workers from the state-run Turkish Petroleum Corp., known by its Turkish initials TPAO, were evacuated from Iraq in June, and the company said it’s now decided to suspend operations because of safety concerns. Yildiz said Turkey’s southern neighbor was an important partner in energy security . "We need patience," he said Thursday. "Iraq is an important market for Turkey and the TPAO should resume work once the tension eases." The Islamic State, a Sunni-led terrorist group known also as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, has taken control of territory in parts of Iraq and Syria. Several energy companies have pulled non-essential staff out of northern Iraq in the face of increased violence in the region. The semiautonomous Kurdish government in northern Iraq has sent oil produced […]

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Water stole the show from oil in Iraq last week, as Kurdish peshmerga soldiers and forces loyal to the government in Baghdad routed Islamic State (IS) fighters from Mosul and a nearby strategic dam – the shoddy construction of which may in some ways be even more dangerous than IS, experts said on Wednesday. Since it was built 30 years ago, the Mosul Dam on the Tigris River has supplied water and electricity to Iraqis living in major population centers to the south. But it requires constant and intensive maintenance to continue holding back billions of gallons of water. Many fear that if it is neglected amid the current fighting it could rupture and flood villages, towns and Baghdad itself, potentially drowning or displacing hundreds of thousands of people. But experts say the dam – and the region’s water resources in general – also presents an enormous opportunity for […]

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The Sunni-led Islamic State has taken control over parts of northwestern Iraq. Last week, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution condemning the use of oil as a source of finance for a group known also as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. The Iraqi Ministry of Oil said Wednesday it was calling on U.N. member states to take action to prevent the export of smuggled crude oil into territories they control. "The Ministry of Oil is troubled by reports that crude oil from fields currently under the control of ISIL is being smuggled to export markets , generating revenues for this terrorist organization," it said in a statement. The ministry said the only entity authorized to sell crude oil on the international market was the State Organization for Marketing of Oil. "International purchasers and other market participants should be aware that any oil exports made without […]

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