Category: Iraq

The chickens are now coming home to roost on Obama’s stupid middle east policy. Obama pulled US troops out of Iraq assuming everything was hunky dory. Then obama did nothing as ISIS rampaged in Syria, and he did nothing when ISIS took over northern Iraq. It would seem to be pretty obvious that the last thing the US would want to see is the Islamist nutjobs of the former al Quaida in Iraq reinventing themselves as a Caliphate and seizing huge swaths of territory and threatening a large part of the world’s oil supply, but thats what is happening while Obama golfs. Fishman on Wed, 6th Aug 2014 6:27 pm  Ah, the religion of Pieces bobinget on Wed, 6th Aug 2014 7:29 pm  Plantagenet, OK: I’ll bite, how in the world did President Obama’s ‘stupid’ Middle East […]

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The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq asked a U.S. court on Monday to throw out an order to seize some 1 million barrels of disputed crude oil and allow the cargo to be freely delivered in Texas. The United Kalavrvta tanker, carrying about $100 million worth of Kurdish crude, has been anchored near Texas for nine days, as the Iraqi region of Kurdistan wages a legal battle over ownership with the central government of Iraq. At the request of Baghdad, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas ordered the U.S. Marshals Service to take control of the cargo last week, but then said the tanker was outside its jurisdiction and beyond U.S. territory in the Gulf of Mexico. KRG said the court lacked the authority to sign the order in the first place, claimed the right to export oil under […]

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Many thousands of members of Iraq’s Yezidi minority in Ninewa province are likely to die unless they can be rescued from extremist militants. Iraq’s Yezidi minority faces massacre A refugee camp in Kurdistan houses members of Iraq’s ethnic Yezidi minority, who fled from ISIS. (PATRICK OSGOOD/Iraq Oil Report/Metrography) Ali Haji Ali is one of at least 10,000 civilians stranded on a mountain in northern Iraq, following a weekend offensive by Sunni extremists. Without food, water, or shelter, he and his family face a stark choice: die a slow death by starvation and dehydration, or descend the mountain and face militants who have sworn to exterminate them."We have been trapped here on the Sinjar Mountain for three days now,” Ali said, speaking by telephone on Aug. 4. “ISIS has blocked our escape route to K… This content is for registered users. Please login to continue. If you are not a […]

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The largest oil producer in Iraqi Kurdistan is confident that the region will maintain independent pipeline exports unimpeded by the violence and political turmoil engulfing the country. The Kurdistan regional government has loaded five cargoes in Ceyhan, Turkey , and two have been sold and paid for, Julian Metherell, chief financial officer at Genel Energy Plc (GENL) , said in an interview today. One went to Singapore and one to Israel , he said. A third is docked off the U.S., where it’s the subject of a legal dispute with Iraq ’s federal government. Genel, the London-based explorer led by former BP Plc (BP/) Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward , said that production rose to a record level in the first half and operations haven’t been affected by the fighting between Islamic militants and the Kurdish military known as Peshmerga. The company expects to export more than 20,000 barrels […]

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Kurdish Peshmerga forces have declared a three-day unilateral ceasefire south of Kirkuk after a demand by Arab tribal chiefs in the area. Peshmerga military officials in the town of Daquq told Rudaw that Arab tribes had asked for the ceasefire – that started Saturday evening —  to give them a chance to try and persuade Islamic State (IS/ISIS) militants to leave the area. The tribes fear that a resumption of fighting between the Peshmerga and IS would cut off the Kirkuk-Tuz Khurmatu highway and affect many ethnically-mixed villages that lie in the frontlines. Meanwhile, Kurdish commanders said they fear that the Islamic militants might use the truce to regroup and bring in reinforcements from elsewhere. Until now the Sunni militants, who have declared an Islamic State straddling large parts of Iraq and portions of Syria, had locked in sporadic clashes with […]

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The ancient northern Iraqi town of Sinjar emptied Sunday, with thousands of people fleeing on foot as Sunni extremist militants made their first significant punches through the defenses of overstretched Kurdish forces. Sinjar is an ancestral home of the long-persecuted Yazidi religious sect, which the Islamic State has branded as devil worshipers, and few of its residents stayed to find out what was planned for them when the group’s militants entered Sunday. Until Sunday, Sinjar had been protected by Kurdish fighters known as pesh merga, but officials from the semi-autonomous northern region have been warning for weeks that they are poorly equipped to sustain the defense of the nearly 650-mile border they now share with the militants. The town of Wana also fell Sunday, putting the Islamic State within striking distance of Mosul’s hydroelectric dam, the largest in the country. After nearly two months of skirmishes, it […]

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Kurdish security forces clashed with a breakaway al-Qaeda group that’s trying to extend its control in northern Iraq by seizing the country’s largest dam. Fighting is raging near the Mosul dam, and it is a “no man’s land,” Sheikh Ahmed Al-Simmari, a resident of the nearby city of Rabia’ah, said in a phone interview. The Kurds retook the Rabia’ah border post with Syria and the nearby town of Sinjar from the militants after fierce fighting late yesterday, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of the groups that governs the largely autonomous region of Kurdish northern Iraq, said on its website. Islamic State, which was previously known as Islamic State in Iraq and Levant, has seized territory throughout Iraq and Syria and declared its own self-styled caliphate, highlighting the central government’s inability to ensure security under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The group this week seized two oil fields and predominantly Kurdish […]

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Oil explorers in Iraq ’s Kurdistan region slumped in Oslo and London after Islamic militants seized two oilfields in Northern Iraq. DNO International ASA (DNO) , which gets most of its output from the Kurdish region, fell as much as 11 percent, the biggest drop in more than six months. Genel Energy Plc (GENL) sank as much as 6.6 percent and Gulf Keystone Petroleum Ltd. (GKP) as much as 3.1 percent. The Ain Zala and Batma oilfields, which together produce about 30,000 barrels a day, are under the control of the Islamic State, a breakaway al-Qaeda group, according to the state-run Northern Oil Co. The Sunni Islamist militants last month occupied the Qayyara oilfield north of Baghdad . Islamic State, previously known as Islamic State in Iraq and Levant, has seized territory in northern and western Iraq, taking over oil wells and fighting for control of refineries. Fighters continued […]

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