Category: Iraq

Editor’s note: Marina Ottaway is a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center. The views expressed are the writer’s own. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has emerged as the clear winner of the Iraqi parliamentary elections . His State of Law coalition has won at least 92 seats of the 328 seats in the Council of Representatives, three times as many as the next largest party. In the 2010 elections, in contrast, al-Maliki lost by two seats to Ayad Allawi’s Iraqiyya Party, a coalition of secular Shia and Sunni organizations that has now completely disintegrated. There is therefore no doubt that al-Maliki will be asked by the president (when parliament can agree on one) to form the new government. In 2010, he had to battle with Allawi for months to get that chance. But putting together a coalition with the needed 164 votes may prove even harder than in 2010, […]

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In Northern Iraq, gunmen broke into a house of a policeman in South of the city of Mosul, and shot dead the policeman, his brother and one of his relatives, before they fled the scene, a local police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. In a separate incident, a car bomb went off near a police patrol in the Western part of Mosul, leaving two policemen and three passers-by wounded, the source said. Meanwhile, gunmen opened fire on a police vehicle on a main road near the city of Baiji, some 200 km North of Baghdad, killing a police officer and a policeman, and wounding another, a local police said. Near Baghdad, a police officer was killed and four policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb struck their patrol in Rashdiyah area, a police source said. In Anbar province, gunmen believed to be linked to the Islamic State […]

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Baghdad:  Violence in Baghdad and north Iraq killed nine people on Friday as throngs of Shiite pilgrims converged on the Iraqi capital for annual commemoration rituals. The unrest came amid tight security measures in Baghdad, as Iraq grapples with a protracted surge in bloodshed that has left more than 3,700 people dead so far this year and fulled fears the country is slipping back into all-out conflict. Friday’s deadly violence struck in the capital and the restive northern province of Nineveh, leaving nine people dead and 22 others wounded, security and medical officials said. Mortar fire in north Baghdad killed three people, while two men were shot dead in the west of the capital. The mortar rounds slammed into the Zahra neighbourhood adjacent to Kadhimiyah, where tens of thousands of Shiite Muslims prepare to commemorate the death of a revered figure in Shiite Islam. For days worshippers from across […]

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Iraq’s election didn’t make a huge splash in the U.S., but the results of the April 30 vote were released this week, and the outcome has important ramifications for Iraq and the wider region. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s party came out way ahead. Iraq has faded from the American radar, but it saw nearly a decade of U.S. military operations. And it’s sandwiched between Syria, where a civil war is raging, and Iran, where nuclear negotiations are at a critical juncture. The international community has repeatedly warned that if Iraq can’t reconcile its ethnic and sectarian differences, the country could fracture and exacerbate these regional tensions. Maliki, who continues to have U.S. support, seems poised to hold onto the job he’s had for the past eight years, even though there are many who doubt that he can bring about reconciliation. He is a Shiite Islamist politician, and in recent […]

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Iraq’s election didn’t make a huge splash in the U.S., but the results of the April 30 vote were released this week, and the outcome has important ramifications for Iraq and the wider region. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s party came out way ahead. Iraq has faded from the American radar, but it saw nearly a decade of U.S. military operations. And it’s sandwiched between Syria, where a civil war is raging, and Iran, where nuclear negotiations are at a critical juncture. The international community has repeatedly warned that if Iraq can’t reconcile its ethnic and sectarian differences, the country could fracture and exacerbate these regional tensions. Maliki, who continues to have U.S. support, seems poised to hold onto the job he’s had for the past eight years, even though there are many who doubt that he can bring about reconciliation. He is a Shiite Islamist politician, and in recent […]

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Iraqi Kurdistan startedloading oil from its new pipeline for shipment from a Turkishport on Thursday, defying the Baghdad government, which claimssole authority over Iraqi crude and declares any independentlysold oil as ‘smuggled’. The cargo of 1 million barrels of crude oil was being loadedon a tanker in the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, Turkish EnergyMinister Taner Yildiz told Reuters on Thursday. "Loading will be completed today," Yildiz said, declining toname the buyer. The sale is likely to infuriate Baghdad, which has been atloggerheads with the autonomous Kurdish region over the sharingof oil revenues, and denounced Turkey’s courtship of the Kurds,warning that steps towards Kurdish economic independence […]

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Blasts are the latest in a surge of nationwide bloodshed that has left more than 3,600 people dead this year in Iraq Three separate attacks targeting Shia Muslim pilgrims in Baghdad on Thursday left at least 31 people dead and 61 others injured ahead of a major religious holiday, police sources told Al Jazeera.  The attackers defied a shutdown of major roadways for Shia religious faithful, who were heading to the Imam Kadhim shrine in Kadimiyah in western Baghdad to commemorate the death of the Shia saint in 799 AD. The two-day rituals are due to climax on Saturday and Sunday. Among the attacks, police said a suicide bomber targeted Shia pilgrims at a bus stop as they gathered to head toward a religious shrine in the Kadimiyah neighborhood. In the Mansour area, a parked car exploded as pilgrims stopped to rest before making their way on a highway […]

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Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s apparent success in gaining a third term in office is a move that could escalate tensions with Sunni militant groups in the country but will have little effect on the country’s massive oil sector — provided al-Maliki handles Iraq’s Kurdish leaders carefully. The Iraqi electoral commission announced Monday that al-Maliki’s State of Law bloc had won the most seats in the April 30 parliamentary elections, falling short of a majority. This week Iraqi officials have struggled to confront how the country will move forward politically. While the country braces for what is expected to be a tumultuous future in forming a new government, experts say the country will most likely not suffer from investment shortfalls in the oil sector — its main source of revenue. Rather, it is the sector’s internal ability to increase capacity and technical expertise that will determine its fate, experts say. […]

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Security Message to U.S. Citizens The U.S. Embassy reminds U.S. citizens that Iraq remains at high risk for kidnapping and terrorist violence. Recent reports indicate that militant groups may be surveilling U.S. citizens for possible kidnapping operations, particularly oil company employees working in Basrah Province, Iraq. The groups may be focused on U.S. citizens at hotels in the Basrah area. We encourage all U.S. citizens to review the existing travel warning for Iraq and take appropriate measures to ensure their safety if travel to Iraq is necessary. U.S. citizens traveling and residing abroad should enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP). U.S. citizens without internet access may enroll directly at the U.S. Embassy or U.S. Consulate General Erbil. By enrolling, U.S. citizens make it easier for the Embassy to contact them in case of emergency. U.S. citizens may contact the U.S. Embassy, located in the IZ, via e-mail […]

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Jihadists have launched a fresh bid to take over the Syria- border area and set up a so-called Islamic state they can control, rebels, activists and a monitoring group say. "Their name is the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater (ISIS). Their goal is to link together the two areas (Syria, Iraq) to set up their state and then to continue spreading," said activist and citizen journalist Abdel Salam Hussein. Speaking from Albu Kamal on the Iraq border, Hussein said ISIS seeks to crush Al-Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda’s Syria affiliate, and control the eastern, energy-rich province of Deir Ezzor bordering Iraq. "ISIS is trying to end Al-Nusra Front’s power in the area, and if they do they will take over" the whole province, he said. ISIS’s long-time ambition of creating an area under its control stretching across Syria and Iraq was undermined by a massive January offensive against it […]

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