Category: Iraq

An Iraqi electoral official says there will be no balloting in parts of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province engulfed in clashes between security forces and al-Qaida-inspired militants. Muqdad al-Shuraifi from the Independent High Electoral Commission said on Tuesday that families displaced by the fighting will be allowed to vote in areas deemed "safe" or in parts of the province where they found shelter. The April 30 parliamentary election is the first balloting in Iraq since the withdrawal of U.S. troops in late 2011. But the exclusion of major Sunni cities such as Ramadi and Fallujah – where most of the fighting is underway as Iraqi forces try to wrest back areas overrun by militants – from the voting could deepen Sunni fears of being marginalized by the country’s Shiite majority.

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Ten people were killed and nine other wounded in separate violent attacks in Iraq on Sunday, police said. In early hours of the day, unknown gunmen broke into the house of a man in the town of Latifiyah, some 30 km south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, and stabbed him, his wife and four of his sons to death with knives, an Interior Ministry source said. Latifiyah is part of the restive area, dubbed "Triangle of Death", which is a hotbed of the insurgency against the U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces. The town is one of a cluster of Sunni towns scattered north of Babil’s provincial capital city Hilla, about 100 km south of Baghdad. In Anbar province, a leader of a […]

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An Iraqi man helps his son who is headed to school at the site of a car bomb attack in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2014. A wave of explosions rocked mainly Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad shortly after sunset on Monday, killing and wounding scores of people. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban) Baghdad (AFP) – A powerful jihadist group inspired by Al-Qaeda has opened a new battlefront with Iraqi security forces that could see it try to push into Baghdad, officials and analysts warn. The latest clashes, just weeks before parliamentary elections, raise key questions over the capacity of the army and police to repel militant attacks. Anti-government fighters currently hold all of Fallujah, a town that is just a short drive from Baghdad, and other pockets of territory. The push by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) into the Abu Ghraib area, […]

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A key Libyan militia in the east has agreed to hand back control of four oil terminals it captured and shut down last summer in its demand for a share in oil revenues, the official Libyan news agency reported. The seizure and the shutdown of the terminals has cost Libya billions of dollars and escalated a political crisis that has threatened to plunge the country into even greater turmoil, unseen since the 2011 civil war that ousted longtime strongman Moammar Gadhafi. After months of a tense standoff – exacerbated by an attempt by the eastern militia to use a North Korean-flagged tanker to export oil from one of the seized terminals – the state news agency LANA reported that a deal was reached with representatives from eastern Libya late on Sunday. The deal could help bolster the authority of the weak central Libyan government in […]

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Canadian energy company Sonoro Energy said it was exploring the opportunity to develop oil sands resources in Iraq. Sonoro said it met with Iraqi officials during the first quarter of 2014 to discuss exploration, production and development of bitumen, or oil sands, in Iraq. "The company has received a positive response to its efforts, and management is of the opinion that it is feasible to achieve a form of federal approval to pursue the development," the company said in a statement Thursday. Bitumen is a viscous form of oil found primarily in the Athabasca deposit in Alberta, Canada. Its viscosity means it requires special heating processes to refine. Sonoro said it was optimistic about its potential to explore the resource in Iraq, but cautioned there are no guarantees approval would be granted. Iraq holds general elections in late April. The company said it expected some regulatory delays given the […]

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Canadian energy company Sonoro Energy said it was exploring the opportunity to develop oil sands resources in Iraq. Sonoro said it met with Iraqi officials during the first quarter of 2014 to discuss exploration, production and development of bitumen, or oil sands, in Iraq. "The company has received a positive response to its efforts, and management is of the opinion that it is feasible to achieve a form of federal approval to pursue the development," the company said in a statement Thursday. Bitumen is a viscous form of oil found primarily in the Athabasca deposit in Alberta, Canada. Its viscosity means it requires special heating processes to refine. Sonoro said it was optimistic about its potential to explore the resource in Iraq, but cautioned there are no guarantees approval would be granted. Iraq holds general elections in late April. The company said it expected some regulatory delays given the […]

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Campaigning for Iraq’s April 30 elections will be "highly divisive" as parties appeal to their sectarian bases at a time of worsening violence, the UN’s envoy to Baghdad has warned. Nickolay Mladenov also pushed for Iraqi leaders to urgently pass a much-delayed annual budget within two weeks, noting that further postponing the spending bill would badly impact on drawing much-needed business and investment to the country. His remarks came as campaigning officially began on Tuesday for the parliamentary polls, Iraq’s first since March 2010, with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki eyeing a third term with bloodshed at its highest level since the country emerged from a brutal sectarian war in 2008. "Campaigning will be highly divisive," Mladenov told AFP from his office in Baghdad’s heavily-fortified Green Zone complex, which is also home to parliament and the American and British embassies. "Everyone is […]

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Campaigning for Iraq’s April 30 elections will be "highly divisive" as parties appeal to their sectarian bases at a time of worsening violence, the UN’s envoy to Baghdad has warned. Nickolay Mladenov also pushed for Iraqi leaders to urgently pass a much-delayed annual budget within two weeks, noting that further postponing the spending bill would badly impact on drawing much-needed business and investment to the country. His remarks came as campaigning officially began on Tuesday for the parliamentary polls, Iraq’s first since March 2010, with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki eyeing a third term with bloodshed at its highest level since the country emerged from a brutal sectarian war in 2008. "Campaigning will be highly divisive," Mladenov told AFP from his office in Baghdad’s heavily-fortified Green Zone complex, which is also home to parliament and the American and British embassies. "Everyone is […]

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Due to pipeline sabotage, and amidst an enduring political impasse, the KRG has postponed its plans to begin exporting through federal channels. Oil tanks at Turkey’s Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, which is run by state-owned Petroleum Pipeline Corporation (BOTAS), where oil exports from the Iraqi central government and, separately, from the KRG, are sent. (UMIT BEKTAS/Reuters) Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region has delayed its plans to begin exporting oil through federal channels, blaming increased violence that has crippled the Iraq-Turkey Pipeline (ITP).Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani had announced that the region would start exporting 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) on April 1 in a "goodwill gesture" to ease tension with Baghdad over oil disputes, which have prevented the passage of a 2014 budget and hampered the full activa… This content is for registered users. Please login to continue. If you are not a registered user, you may […]

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An Iraqi special forces patrol moves on foot past ruined homes on the outskirts of Ramadi, a city west of Baghdad where al-Qaida-inspired militants have held off the military for three months. As they head down an alleyway, shots from snipers ring out, followed by grenade blasts. The troops take shelter behind walls and Humvees and return fire. No one is wounded and the operation continues. A short while later the unit is clearing a house. They blow open the outer gate with a charge and a bomb expert goes inside. He pronounces the building safe to enter and calls on the rest of the soldiers to search it. Moments later a huge explosion collapses the building, shakes the ground and sends dust billowing in the air. "God curse Daesh," one junior officer swore, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and […]

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