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Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric issues call to fight jihadist rebels

Iraq’s most senior Shi’ite Muslim cleric urged followers to take up arms against a full-blown Sunni militant insurgency to topple Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, escalating a conflict that threatens civil war and a possible break-up of the country. In Washington, U.S. President Barack Obama said he was reviewing military options, short of sending combat troops, to help Iraq fight the insurgency but warned any U.S. action must be accompanied by an Iraqi effort to bridge political divisions. He said it would several days to decide on the U.S. response. In a rare intervention at Friday prayers in the holy city of Kerbala, a message from Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is the highest religious authority for Shi’ites in Iraq, said people should unite to fight back against a lightning advance by militants from the radical Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Fighters under […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric issues call to fight jihadist rebels

Iraq’s most senior Shi’ite Muslim cleric urged followers to take up arms against a full-blown Sunni militant insurgency to topple Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, escalating a conflict that threatens civil war and a possible break-up of the country. In Washington, U.S. President Barack Obama said he was reviewing military options, short of sending combat troops, to help Iraq fight the insurgency but warned any U.S. action must be accompanied by an Iraqi effort to bridge political divisions. He said it would several days to decide on the U.S. response. In a rare intervention at Friday prayers in the holy city of Kerbala, a message from Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is the highest religious authority for Shi’ites in Iraq, said people should unite to fight back against a lightning advance by militants from the radical Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Fighters under […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Loss of Mosul threatens Iraqi PM’s hold on power

The disastrous loss of a large swath of the north to Islamic militants is threatening to cost Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, his job as even longtime Shiite backers turn against him and seek an alternative. During a meeting of Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish party leaders, one young up-and-coming Shiite politician angrily told al-Maliki that his "obsession with power" and botched policies were to blame for this week’s debacle. "Now, I must leave. I have a meeting to go to," a seething Ammar al-Hakim, leader of a key Shiite party, declared before storming out of the session Wednesday night, according to a politician who attended and shared the exchange with The Associated Press in return for anonymity. During his eight years in office, al-Maliki has touted himself as the only leader capable of safeguarding the Shiite […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Loss of Mosul threatens Iraqi PM's hold on power

The disastrous loss of a large swath of the north to Islamic militants is threatening to cost Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, his job as even longtime Shiite backers turn against him and seek an alternative. During a meeting of Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish party leaders, one young up-and-coming Shiite politician angrily told al-Maliki that his "obsession with power" and botched policies were to blame for this week’s debacle. "Now, I must leave. I have a meeting to go to," a seething Ammar al-Hakim, leader of a key Shiite party, declared before storming out of the session Wednesday night, according to a politician who attended and shared the exchange with The Associated Press in return for anonymity. During his eight years in office, al-Maliki has touted himself as the only leader capable of safeguarding the Shiite […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Conflict Shows New, Closer Turk-Iraqi Kurdish Ties

The military posture of northern Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government to defend itself against advancing Islamist rebels spotlights a reversal in one of the region’s most toxic relationships: Between Turkey and the Kurds. In previous years, Kurdish assertiveness—even in neighboring Iraq—was often countered by Turkey, which for more than a quarter century was locked in a deadly conflict with Kurdish separatists in its own country before launching peace talks in 2012. But since the U.S. invasion of Iraq more than a decade ago, Turkey has built close ties to the Kurdish government in its regional capital of Erbil, Iraq, expanding bilateral trade and coordinating vital policy issues, including the civil war in Syria. Underscoring that trend, Turkey has kept mum on Erbil’s mobilization to defend its borders this past week by deploying its Peshmerga troops into the oil-rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk. In past decades, Turkey has fiercely objected […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Kurdish Fighters Succeed Where Iraqi Army Fails

Kurdish Iraqi Peshmerga forces deploy on the outskirts of Kirkuk, near areas controlled by Sunni Muslim Jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Erbil, Iraq—Brig. Halgord Hikmat, the spokesman for the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Peshmerga Ministry, made little effort to conceal his satisfaction on Friday. "Yes," he said with a cheeky grin. "It is a very nice time to be Kurdish." Only a few hours before, Kurdish soldiers known as Peshmerga were engaging Islamist insurgent fighters in Diyala Province, picking up the slack from hundreds of retreating Iraqi troops. On Thursday Peshmerga fighters moved decisively to occupy the nearby city of Kirkuk, easily expelling Islamist fighters who had sent Iraqi troops literally running for the hills. The Iraqi government in Baghdad has suffered a string of humiliating military defeats this week as insurgents from the al Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham conquered […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Exxon and the Insurgency: Iraq’s Oil Players Hold Their Breath

In Iraq, Exxon Mobil Corp.’s prospects were finally beginning to look up. This week, they got a little cloudier. Oil production at the Exxon-led West Qurna-1 field in southern Iraq has doubled, now capable of delivering half a million barrels of crude a day. And the company recently obtained more generous terms in its contracts with the government, booking higher profit margins. But in mere days, Islamic militants have overrun two major cities and Kurdish forces have taken over a third, exposing security vulnerabilities that could jeopardize the billions of dollars western companies are spending to revitalize Iraq’s energy sector. The unrest has pushed up global oil prices , but it’s hardly welcome news for the likes of Exxon, BP PLC and Royal Dutch Shell PLC. Those companies have done much of the heavy […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Key energy facilities under ISIS control

) The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) has seized several parts of Iraq’s northern energy sector in what could be an attempt to hijack a portion of Iraq’s oil revenue stream. The Baiji refinery, Iraq’s largest, is now under the control of local tribes aligned with ISIS, according to refinery workers, two senior North Oil Company (NOC) officials, and a senior Interior Ministry official. Militants have caused no damage and instructed workers to keep the facility online. "ISIS left all …

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Insurgents Broaden Attacks in Advance on Baghdad

BAGHDAD — Sunni insurgents pressing toward Baghdad were reported on Friday to have fanned out to the east, taking two towns near Iraq’s border with Iran, further splintering the country into hostile fiefs and raising the stakes in a perilous regional crisis. The capture of the towns of Saadiyah and Jalawla came a day after Kurdish forces further north seized on the accelerating rout of government troops to take over the oil city of Kirkuk, long contested by Iraqi Kurds and the country’s Arab leaders in Baghdad. The Kurds control a semiautonomous region and have long eyed independence. The Kurdish moves on Thursday presented Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki with a twin challenge by Kurds and Sunni militants to restore Iraq’s cohesion and his government’s authority in face of the worst security crisis since the American withdrawal in 2011 and the apparent disintegration of the American-armed Iraqi Army. Kurdish […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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The Iraqi Army Was Crumbling Long Before Its Collapse, U.S. Officials Say

WASHINGTON — The stunning collapse of Iraq ’s army in a string of cities across the north reflects poor leadership, declining troop morale, broken equipment and a sharp decline in training since the last American advisers left the country in 2011, American military and intelligence officials said Thursday. Four of Iraq’s 14 army divisions virtually abandoned their posts, stripped off their uniforms and fled when confronted in cities such as Mosul and Tikrit by militant groups, principally fighters aligned with the radical Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, the officials said. The divisions that collapsed were said to be made up of Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish troops. Other units made up of mainly Shiite troops and stationed closer to Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, were believed to be more loyal to the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite, and would most likely put up greater […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple