Category: Iraq

Snipers line the rooftops across Falluja, waiting for a chance to shoot at government soldiers, should they try to invade. Homes have been wired to explode, too, just in case the government rushes the city. And roads have been studded with countless steel-plated bombs, of the type that killed so many American soldiers here. Falluja — and the rest of Anbar Province — perhaps more than any other locale in Iraq, embodies the lengths the United States went to tame a bloody insurgency unleashed by its invasion. But now, much of the region is again beyond the authority of the central government and firmly in the control of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, a jihadist group that is so radical it has broken with Al Qaeda, in part because it insisted on being allowed to indiscriminately kill Shiites. That reality, which the government appears powerless […]

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Officials say a back-to-back bomb attack in an outdoor market northeast of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, killed at least 11 people. A police officer says Tuesday’s attack took place in the town of al-Saadiyah, 140 kilometers (90 miles) northeast of Baghdad. He added that at least 19 other people were wounded. A medical official confirmed casualty figures. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information. The attack came a day after a series of attacks killed at least 46 people, the latest violence aimed at discouraging Iraqi voters from going to the polls on Wednesday in the first nationwide elections since the 2011 withdrawal of U.S. forces. More than 9,000 candidates are vying for 328 seats in Parliament.

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As a vitally important resource both for the economy and survival, water turns out to be a matter of conflict in the domestic policy and this inevitably poses threat for the whole of Iraq Updated : Published : The clashes that erupted at the end of 2013 in Fallujah, a city in the Iraqi province of al-Anbar, have continuously posed a danger for the security of the country. There are no estimations as to when the conflict between the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an al-Qaeda-linked organization, and troops of the central Iraqi government will come to an end. This conflict has regional influences as well. Some ISIL-affiliated groups active in the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi seized the control of the Fallujah dam.The dam, built for irrigation in 1985, does not include a hydroelectric power station. The Iraqi general staff explained that the dam, constructed […]

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As a vitally important resource both for the economy and survival, water turns out to be a matter of conflict in the domestic policy and this inevitably poses threat for the whole of Iraq Updated : Published : The clashes that erupted at the end of 2013 in Fallujah, a city in the Iraqi province of al-Anbar, have continuously posed a danger for the security of the country. There are no estimations as to when the conflict between the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an al-Qaeda-linked organization, and troops of the central Iraqi government will come to an end. This conflict has regional influences as well. Some ISIL-affiliated groups active in the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi seized the control of the Fallujah dam.The dam, built for irrigation in 1985, does not include a hydroelectric power station. The Iraqi general staff explained that the dam, constructed […]

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Even as an al Qaeda-linked militant group celebrated a major victory in Western Iraq last month, militants from the same jihadist group launched another operation clear across the country. In coordinated predawn attacks, gunmen blew up two bridges in a village outside the eastern town of Qara Tepe. They detonated a fuel tanker at a police base close to nearby Injana, shot 12 soldiers and incinerated their bodies. By afternoon, militants had attacked four other police and army checkpoints. Instead of bolstering their ranks, some police and military checkpoints simply packed up and left. Lacking protection, hundreds of villagers fled their homes for larger towns. "The security forces are weak, and they are putting the responsibility for their weakness on us," says Aziz Latif, a farmer who fled the village of New Sari Tepe after it was attacked on March 21. "They are not professional." More than […]

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Fifty people were killed on Monday as suicide bombers attacked a political rally and Iraqi police and soldiers cast their votes early for a national election in two days’ time, authorities and witnesses said. A suicide attacker killed at least 30 people and wounded 50 others at a Kurdish political gathering in the town of Khanaqin, 140 km (100 miles) northeast of Baghdad, security sources said. The Kurds were celebrating the television appearance of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd incapacitated since late 2012, who cast his vote in Germany where he was undergoing medical treatment. "The attacker snuck among the crowds near the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s headquarters and blew himself up, causing a tragic massacre," one police officer said, sobbing after he discovered his brother was among those killed. Meanwhile, Sunni Muslim militants, mostly disguised in army and police uniforms, struck at polling centers […]

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Two years after the U.S. withdrawal and four years into Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s second term, Iraq is on the brink of breaking apart. The upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for April 30, and the political process of government formation that will follow, present an opportunity to push for a return to more inclusive politics in Iraq. Unless Maliki is replaced or drastically changes his policies, these might be the last elections in a nominally united Iraq. Maliki has used the opportunity of the U.S. departure to consolidate his centralized rule and has alienated both the Kurdish and Sunni communities. Tensions from the ongoing war in Syria have only made matters worse. If Maliki secures a third term and maintains his current policies, the Kurdish region of the north might move toward secession and al-Qa‘ida groups might more firmly consolidate their hold on the western, Sunni parts of Iraq, effectively […]

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Iraqi officials say suicide bombers have targeted polling centers as soldiers and security forces cast ballots ahead of parliamentary elections. The attacks killed at least nine people. Police say in one of the attacks on Monday, in the northern city of Tuz Khormato, the bomber blew himself up at a checkpoint leading to the polling center. Interior Ministry spokesman Saad Maan Ibrahim says another bomber struck a polling center in Baghdad’s western Mansour area, killing three troops and wounding four. A police officer says five security forces were wounded in another suicide attack, in the northern city of Mosul. He spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to media.

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