Category: Iraq

Militants in Iraq launched an audacious attack on a military barracks in a remote area in the country’s north and killed 20 troops overnight, including some who had been bound and shot at close range, authorities said Sunday as other attacks killed 14. The killings at the military barracks in the village of Ayn al-Jahish outside of Mosul mirrored two previous assaults earlier this year in the area targeting security forces. It also represents the latest blow to the government’s efforts to achieve stability in restive Sunni-dominated areas. Gunmen staged the assault late Saturday night, two police officers said, shooting some at short range while others died fighting the insurgents when they stormed the barracks. A medical official, who confirmed the causality number, said 11 troops had their hands tied behind their backs and suffered close-range gunshots to the head. The slain troops are in charge […]

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Fighting in Iraq’s western Anbar province, now in its fifth month, appears to have bogged down, with government forces unable to drive out Islamic militants who took over one of the area’s main cities. But the impact is being felt much further, with the repercussions rippling through the country’s economy to hit consumers and businesses. The large, desert province is a major crossroads. The main highways linking Baghdad and other parts of Iraq to Syria and Jordan run through it. So fighting has not only dislodged thousands of residents from their homes and forced shutdowns of their businesses. It has also disrupted shipping, inflating prices of goods in Baghdad and elsewhere. Fears of the road have gotten so bad Iraq has had to stop shipments of oil to Jordan. Anwar Salah, co-owner of al-Baqiee travel agency in Baghdad, said his company used to run more than […]

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Fighting in Iraq’s western Anbar province, now in its fifth month, appears to have bogged down, with government forces unable to drive out Islamic militants who took over one of the area’s main cities. But the impact is being felt much further, with the repercussions rippling through the country’s economy to hit consumers and businesses. The large, desert province is a major crossroads. The main highways linking Baghdad and other parts of Iraq to Syria and Jordan run through it. So fighting has not only dislodged thousands of residents from their homes and forced shutdowns of their businesses. It has also disrupted shipping, inflating prices of goods in Baghdad and elsewhere. Fears of the road have gotten so bad Iraq has had to stop shipments of oil to Jordan. Anwar Salah, co-owner of al-Baqiee travel agency in Baghdad, said his company used to run more than […]

Click here to view full article at bigstory.ap.org

The Iraqi government is actively seeking armed drones from the U.S. to combat al Qaeda in its increasingly violent Anbar province, and in a significant reversal, would welcome American military drone operators back into the country to target those militants on its behalf, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite government has for the last several months struggled to stem the violence in Iraq’s western reaches, particularly in the Sunni-dominated Anbar province, site of some of the heaviest and bloodiest fighting of the decade-long Iraq War. Some of the instability in western Iraq is attributed to fighters arriving from Iraq’s war-torn neighbor, Syria. Iraq has long sought drones for surveillance and reconnaissance purposes and has begun to receive some from the U.S. in limited numbers. But the nature of the fight the Maliki government confronts in western Iraq is such that officials say […]

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Iraq’s acting defense minister looks beleaguered, his face drawn, with deep bags below his eyes from a lack of sleep. For four months, Sadoun al-Dulaimi has been operating from Anbar, the most dangerous province for U.S. soldiers during the Iraq war and one again riven by conflict. The army has dispatched 42,000 troops here in a bid to quell al-Qaeda-inspired jihadists and hostile tribesmen, whose resurgence is posing the biggest test for the Iraqi military and the country’s Shiite-led government since the withdrawal of U.S. forces 2 / years ago. The battle is filled with potential pitfalls. A government failure to regain control in Sunni-dominated Anbar would jeopardize the country’s unity. But an escalated military offensive could deepen anger among the nation’s Sunni minority, fanning the flames of sectarian war. The fight has proved tougher than expected . Hundreds of soldiers have died, and the military […]

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Violence in Iraq, including shelling in a rebel-held city and an attack targeting Shia pilgrims, has killed more than 30 people in 24 hours, officials have said. It came as officials counted ballots from the April 30 general election, the first since US troops withdrew in late 2011, and amid a protracted surge in nationwide unrest that has sparked fears of a return to the large-scale sectarian killing sprees of 2006-2007. In Fallujah, just a short drive west of Baghdad, shelling in southern areas of the city killed 11 people and wounded four others, Ahmed Shami, a doctor, said. It was not immediately clear who was behind the bombardment, which began on Saturday evening and continued into Sunday. In a sign of the significant power of anti-government fighters, all of Fallujah and parts of Anbar provincial capital Ramadi, farther west, have been out of government control since early January. […]

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Iraqi crude exports brought in $7.577 billion in April as oil sales increased to an average 2.509 million barrels per day (bpd) – a boost of 113,000 bpd over the Continue Reading

ON APRIL 30th Nuri al-Maliki stepped behind a cardboard voting booth in a hotel ballroom in Baghdad, cast his ballot and raised a triumphant finger dipped in purple ink, urging other Iraqis to head for the polls, too. But this was in the relative safety of the fortified “green zone”, the government area which, he fears, is the ultimate target of opposition fighters now proliferating to the west and north of the capital. Elsewhere in Iraq the election took place amid bombs and bitter sectarian animosity between Sunni and Shia politicians. Even if most Iraqis managed to vote, there was no sign of this gulf being bridged. The dour, authoritarian Mr Maliki seems bent on keeping an almost exclusively Shia grip on Iraq. Since January the security forces have lost control of large chunks of Anbar province, west of Baghdad, to aggrieved Sunni fighters, some of them proclaiming allegiance […]

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Oil flows at around 100,000 bpd since Sunday are leading up to expected sales, possibly to Turkish refining company Tupras. Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region has restarted independent pipeline exports of roughly 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, in anticipation of first oil sales this month.The resumption of pumping signals the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) determination to capitalize on a moment of political opportunity. Following April 30 national elections, Iraqi leaders are poised to enter negotiations to form a new government, in which the Kurds could try to force Baghdad …

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