Category: Iraq

Iraqi officials say militants have stormed a government building in a city north of Baghdad, killing at least six people. Police officers say two suicide bombers first blew themselves up on Tuesday at the entrance to the local council in Samara, paving the way for five other attackers to storm inside after detonating a parked car bomb. The officers say security forces quickly arrived at the scene, besieged the building and after a two-hour gunbattle, killed all the attackers and freed an unspecified number of people who had been trapped inside. Among those killed in the attack were three policemen and at least three civilians. The officials say 34 people were wounded. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to media. © 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. […]

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Iraqi Oil Minister Abdul Karim Luaibi (center), Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Hussain al-Shahristani (second from right), and Nihad Mousa (right), the head of the State Company for Oil Projects, preside over a ceremony marking the expansion of the Basra refinery. (Photo courtesy of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister) Iraq’s average daily exports rose by 551,000 barrels per day (bpd) in February – a 26 percent jump from January – as the oil sector benefited from infrastructure repairs, upgrade projects, and debottlenecking work.That momentum will need to continue over the coming months because several major fields are scheduled to bring more than 500,000 bpd of new production online by the end of the year, led by the start-up of West Qurna 2, which operator Lukoil is set to push to 300,000 bpd. This… This content is for registered users. Please login to continue. If you are not […]

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In a trailer relocated from Camp Victory, Eman Rasheed brushes the dust off her clothes and tries to settle her children on thin foam mattresses after fleeing Fallujah for a second time. Children peer out of the stripped-down trailers, once parked in the sand at the main US military base, from behind doors dotted with peeling stickers of American flags and advertisements for energy drinks.  Skip to next paragraph The old signs taped to the door urging energy conservation when using the heaters or air conditioners seem taunting – there are no lights or heating units. There is no running water. At lunchtime a small pickup truck with large platters of rice and chicken cooked by resident s  of the city, Samarra , pulls up. A young volunteer jumps out to deliver a tin platter to each door. For many here, this is their second exodus from Fallujah. Ten years ago, US forces […]

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In a trailer relocated from Camp Victory, Eman Rasheed brushes the dust off her clothes and tries to settle her children on thin foam mattresses after fleeing Fallujah for a second time. Children peer out of the stripped-down trailers, once parked in the sand at the main US military base, from behind doors dotted with peeling stickers of American flags and advertisements for energy drinks.  Skip to next paragraph The old signs taped to the door urging energy conservation when using the heaters or air conditioners seem taunting – there are no lights or heating units. There is no running water. At lunchtime a small pickup truck with large platters of rice and chicken cooked by resident s  of the city, Samarra , pulls up. A young volunteer jumps out to deliver a tin platter to each door. For many here, this is their second exodus from Fallujah. Ten years ago, US forces […]

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Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ‘s dispute with Iraq’s Kurdish minority over its independent oil exports has escalated with the central government blocking Kurdistan’s share of the state budget and banning two airlines that operate between Europe and the Kurds’ semiautonomous northern enclave. Kurdistan’s president, Massoud Barzani , warned Maliki that his actions are "a declaration of war against the people of Kurdistan." The simmering feud between the autocratically inclined Maliki and the independence-minded Kurds seems set to escalate sharply. But Maliki is facing a potentially explosive parliamentary election on April 30, the first since U.S. military forces withdrew in December 2011. He hopes it will bring him a third term as premier, while battling a widening insurgency by the minority Sunnis and al-Qaida that many in Baghdad fear will eventually spread to Iraq’s all-important oil industry, which is largely in the Shiite-controlled south. Some […]

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Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ‘s dispute with Iraq’s Kurdish minority over its independent oil exports has escalated with the central government blocking Kurdistan’s share of the state budget and banning two airlines that operate between Europe and the Kurds’ semiautonomous northern enclave. Kurdistan’s president, Massoud Barzani , warned Maliki that his actions are "a declaration of war against the people of Kurdistan." The simmering feud between the autocratically inclined Maliki and the independence-minded Kurds seems set to escalate sharply. But Maliki is facing a potentially explosive parliamentary election on April 30, the first since U.S. military forces withdrew in December 2011. He hopes it will bring him a third term as premier, while battling a widening insurgency by the minority Sunnis and al-Qaida that many in Baghdad fear will eventually spread to Iraq’s all-important oil industry, which is largely in the Shiite-controlled south. Some […]

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A bomb hidden on a motorcycle exploded at a secondhand market in Iraq’s capital, the deadliest of a series of bombings Thursday around Baghdad that killed at least 31 people, authorities said. The motorcycle market blast struck Baghdad’s sprawling eastern Sadr City district as night fell, killing at least 22 people and wounding 45, officials said. It appeared as though the motorcycle bomb had been slipped in among the other bikes on display, officials said. A wounded man, who identified himself as Ahmed, rested in a nearby hospital. "I was about to leave the market when a huge explosion happened," Ahmed told Reuters. "I was hit in my face and my hands and when I got up, everyone was screaming and running towards me away from the blast." Meanwhile, two other bombs struck across the capital targeting minibuses ferrying home laborers at the end of the workday. In Sadr […]

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Iraq’s Cabinet has approved the grant of investment licenses for two new power plants that together are expected to add 4,500 megawatts to Iraq’s power supply.

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Iraq has started construction on a long-planned refinery in southern Karbala Province, 100 km south of Baghdad ( OGJ Online, Aug. 1, 2011 ). In a recent groundbreaking ceremony, Iraq’s Prime Minister Noori Al-Maliki laid the first cornerstone for the refinery, which is being built by a four-company consortium of South Korean companies led by Hyundai Engineering & Construction ( OGJ Online, Jan. 9, 2014 ), according to a Feb. 25 release from the Iraqi Ministry of Oil. Delayed construction on the $6.04 billion refinery resulted from political circumstances facing Iraq, particularly Baath regime policies of sabotage, Al-Maliki said during the ceremony. The planned 140,000-b/d Karbala refinery, which will contain more than 20 processing units to produce liquefied gas, gasoline, gas oil, fuel oil, jet fuel, and asphalt meeting international standards equivalent to European production, will serve growing domestic Iraqi demand, Iraq’s Minister of Oil Abdulkareem Liaybi said. The […]

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