Category: Iraq

Iraq’s security forces are now waging a massive offensive in Fallujah against militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), which is currently controlling most of the city. Government forces have regained control of several villages and neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city, as well as the University of Fallujah, in an apparent effort to cut off ISIS supply lines and isolate militants ahead of a larger ground attack. The campaign to retake Fallujah has been dubbed "Ta… This content is for registered users. Please login to continue. If you are not a registered user, you may purchase a subscription or sign up for a free trial .

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Iraq’s political parties are already maneuvering to form a government nearly two weeks before preliminary results from the elections are due, with Nuri al-Maliki’s bid to retain the premiership hanging in the balance. With violence at its worst in years and many voters dissatisfied over rampant corruption, high unemployment and poor basic services, the incumbent premier faces strong opposition. But Maliki’s bloc is still widely expected to take the largest number of parliament seats from the April 30 vote, even if they do not win a majority, sparking a race between him and his rivals to secure the 165 seats necessary to form a government. Parties from Iraq’s Shiite, and Kurdish communities have already begun to meet to discuss potential alliances, though provisional results are not expected until May 25. "Politics parties … are manoeuvring in the meantime until results are announced," said Ihsan al-Shammari, professor of politics […]

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Production revenues from oil produced from the Kurdish north of Iraq should increase this year, Gulf Keystone Petroleum said Wednesday. Gulf Keystone, which has headquarters in London, said it received a gross payment of $6.46 million in May for its first crude oil exports from the Shaikan reserve areas in the Kurdish north of Iraq. "Production revenues are expected to increase significantly in [second half of] 2014," it said . The company issued an interim financial statement Wednesday. It said gross exports by truck totaled 836,205 barrels for the first quarter of the year. Domestic sales from the Shaikan reserve area in the Kurdish north was 24,767 barrels for the quarter. The company estimates the region’s Shaikan field could hold as much as 10.5 billion barrels of oil. The semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government has said production could reach 250,000 bpd by 2018. Exports of Kurdish […]

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Officials say a car bombing in a bustling area in central Baghdad has killed at least five people. A police officer says the parked explosives-laden vehicle went off on Thursday morning in Karrada neighborhood, near a commercial area and some government offices. Three civilians and two policemen were killed and at least 12 people were wounded in the explosion. A medical official confirmed the causality figures. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to media. Since last year, Iraq has been seeing the worst level of violence since the nation emerged from Shiite-Sunni bloodletting in 2008. The U.N. says 8,868 people were killed in 2013, and more than 1,400 people were killed in January and February of this year.

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The president of Iraqi Kurdistan, Masoud Barzani, said Iraq had been led in an authoritarian direction by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and threatened to end the oil-rich autonomous region’s participation in the federal government. Iraq held elections on April 30. The results have yet to be announced but Kurdish support is crucial to Maliki’s ambitions for a third term. The incumbent premier’s rivals, both Shi’ite and Sunni, are hoping Barzani and the Kurds will help them thwart Maliki’s bid to stay in office for four more years. Barzani said Kurdish parties would meet as soon as the results of the election were officially announced, expected in the next few days, to decide how to proceed in negotiations over the government formation. The talks could drag on for months and Barzani declined to give any more details of the Kurds’ […]

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Iraqi Kurdistan is risking the loss of its share of Iraq’s national budget to secure greater independence and the right to manage its own oil. Although oil exports could net the Kurdistan Regional Government a healthy revenue stream, for now it cannot plug the gap if Baghdad continues to withhold the 17 percent of the national budget that it provides to Kurdistan every year. That revenue makes up the largest chunk of the Kurdish region’s budget, even though the Kurds say they regularly receive much less than promised.  Baghdad began withholding that money in January, and the KRG has already had to delay paying public sector workers’ wages – April’s paychecks still haven’t arrived, and some workers have gone on strike. Officials say they will have to dip into savings. The Kurds, spread across Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, have long faced persecution and clamored for greater independence in each […]

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Iraqi Kurdistan is risking the loss of its share of Iraq’s national budget to secure greater independence and the right to manage its own oil. Although oil exports could net the Kurdistan Regional Government a healthy revenue stream, for now it cannot plug the gap if Baghdad continues to withhold the 17 percent of the national budget that it provides to Kurdistan every year. That revenue makes up the largest chunk of the Kurdish region’s budget, even though the Kurds say they regularly receive much less than promised.  Baghdad began withholding that money in January, and the KRG has already had to delay paying public sector workers’ wages – April’s paychecks still haven’t arrived, and some workers have gone on strike. Officials say they will have to dip into savings. The Kurds, spread across Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, have long faced persecution and clamored for greater independence in each […]

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A rogue Iraqi offshoot of al Qaeda is now killing more rival al Qaeda fighters every week in Syria than President Bashar al-Assad’s forces as infighting intensifies among opposition gunmen. Clashes this year between al Qaeda’s official Syria wing, the Nusra Front, and the franchise’s disowned offspring, The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), have killed hundreds of fighters and displaced tens of thousands of civilians. Nusra lost control of Raqqa – the only rebel-held city in Syria – to ISIL fighters in January and intense fighting over the weekend resulted in ISIL making gains in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor, Syria’s oil region. If ISIL can take the province, it will control territory across Syria and into Iraq. Al Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has repeatedly tried to rein in ISIL and this month he appealed to the group to return to Iraq […]

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A rogue Iraqi offshoot of al Qaeda is now killing more rival al Qaeda fighters every week in Syria than President Bashar al-Assad’s forces as infighting intensifies among opposition gunmen. Clashes this year between al Qaeda’s official Syria wing, the Nusra Front, and the franchise’s disowned offspring, The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), have killed hundreds of fighters and displaced tens of thousands of civilians. Nusra lost control of Raqqa – the only rebel-held city in Syria – to ISIL fighters in January and intense fighting over the weekend resulted in ISIL making gains in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor, Syria’s oil region. If ISIL can take the province, it will control territory across Syria and into Iraq. Al Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has repeatedly tried to rein in ISIL and this month he appealed to the group to return to Iraq […]

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A wave of car bombings in mainly Shiite areas of Baghdad killed 23 people on Tuesday, officials said, the latest in a surge in violence that has been the most serious challenge to the government’s efforts to achieve stability across Iraq. The attacks came as Iraqi Shiites were celebrating the birthday of Imam Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad and Shiite Islam’s most sacred martyr. In the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, a car bomb went off in the morning hours, killing four people and wounding six, police officials said. Another car bomb elsewhere in Sadr City exploded near a cluster of homes, killing two people and wounding seven. Associated Press Television footage from one of the Sadr City attacks showed a thick cloud of smoke rising from the blast area where several cars were on fire. A short while later, a car […]

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