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Suicide bomber kills 11 at Shi'ite funeral in Iraq

A suicide bomber killed 11 people and wounded 20 at a Shi’ite Muslim funeral in a city northeast of Baghdad on Tuesday, police said, as Iraqi insurgents pursue a campaign of deadly attacks. The bombing took place in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) from of the capital at a funeral for a group of Shi’ite shepherds who had been killed by unidentified gunmen outside the city. No one immediately claimed responsibility, but suicide bombings have been a favored tactic of Sunni insurgents linked to al Qaeda and who are widely blamed for this year’s surge in violence that has mostly targeted civilians. Baquba has been hit by some of the deadliest attacks, and earlier this month a suicide bomber blew himself up at a funeral in a nearby town. Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government says the violence is being fuelled by the war in neighboring Syria, which has […]

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Suicide bomber kills 11 at Shi’ite funeral in Iraq

A suicide bomber killed 11 people and wounded 20 at a Shi’ite Muslim funeral in a city northeast of Baghdad on Tuesday, police said, as Iraqi insurgents pursue a campaign of deadly attacks. The bombing took place in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) from of the capital at a funeral for a group of Shi’ite shepherds who had been killed by unidentified gunmen outside the city. No one immediately claimed responsibility, but suicide bombings have been a favored tactic of Sunni insurgents linked to al Qaeda and who are widely blamed for this year’s surge in violence that has mostly targeted civilians. Baquba has been hit by some of the deadliest attacks, and earlier this month a suicide bomber blew himself up at a funeral in a nearby town. Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government says the violence is being fuelled by the war in neighboring Syria, which has […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Iraq to Become Iran’s Largest Gas Customer

Iraq is willing to boost its gas imports from Iran to 90 million cubic meters (mcm) per day, a senior Iranian gas official said. This comes as on July 21, Iranian and Iraqi oil ministers signed the first deal to transfer Iran’s natural gas to power plants in Baghdad and Diyala provinces. Iran expects to begin exporting gas to neighboring Iraq by July next year, with initial volumes set at 7 million cubic metres per day, an the volume expected to increase to 25 mcm/day by 2015 and ultimately 40 mcm/day, said National Iranian Gas Export Company Director General Alireza Kameli on Saturday. The pipeline will stretch from Assaluyeh, near the massive offshore South Pars gas field in southern Iran, and will continue into neighboring Iraq to feed Iraqi power plants running on gas. Iraq’s electricity ministry said earlier this year it had signed […]

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Car bomb near Iraqi cafe used by Sunni militia kills 11

A car bomb exploded near a cafe in northeastern Iraq on Monday, killing 11 people and wounding 23, police said, as the country grapples with its deadliest violence in at least five years. The explosion took place in Buhriz, 60 km (35 miles) northeast of Baghdad, close to a cafe popular with members of the government-backed Sunni Muslim Sahwa militia. The force of the explosion pushed Ahmed Saied off his chair at a nearby store, wounding him in the leg. "I opened my eyes minutes later and dust covered the place. Many cars were burning and shrapnel was everywhere," he told Reuters by telephone. "While police were evacuating me, I saw many killed and wounded people at the scene." No group has claimed responsibility for the bombing in Diyala province, but Sunni insurgents linked to al Qaeda have frequently attacked Sahwa members this year. The Sahwa, […]

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After execution-style killings, Iraqis await worse

A spate of execution-style killings in Iraq has rekindled memories of attacks carried out at the height of the country’s sectarian bloodshed and raised fears of a widespread return to such violence. In the past week Iraqi police have found the bodies of at least 41 men who were either shot in the head or decapitated in a wave of killings in Baghdad and northern Iraq. Iraqi security officials say these targeted killings have more to do with attempts to fuel instability, and with infighting within the two Muslim sects, than with direct hostility between Shi’ite and Sunni communities. They believe the killings are not directly related. But they warn that such chaos could set off wider sectarian violence, especially when combined with an insurgent bombing campaign led by al Qaeda, which is expected to get worse ahead of parliamentary elections in April next year. "The […]

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Coordinated attacks in northern Iraqi city kill 11, wound 70

Gunmen and suicide bombers attacked a police intelligence headquarters and a nearby shopping mall in a coordinated attack in the northern city of Kirkuk late on Wednesday, killing 11 people and wounding 70, police and medical sources said. Two suicide bombers armed with sniper rifles entered the shopping complex, took control of it and captured around 15 shoppers as hostages, police said. After a gun battle, one suicide bomber blew himself up and the other was shot dead by Kurdish security forces who took over the operation from local police. One hostage was wounded, police said. "I was inside my home when there was a big explosion, our house was shaking and the windows shattered," said a man who gave his name as Abu Ahmed who lives next to the mall. He saw several attackers carrying weapons heading towards the mall. "Dozens of women, men and […]

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Iraq police storm mall, kill gunmen after standoff

Iraqi police stormed a mall in a northern city that gunmen used to launch an attack on a nearby police station, killing three militants and ending an hourslong standoff as attacks elsewhere left seven dead Thursday, authorities said. Militants held off police from their rooftop position on six-story Jawahir mall in Kirkuk overnight, throwing down grenades and firing on officers and civilians who tried to flee the fighting. Officers raided the mall Thursday morning before dawn, killing the militants, said Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qadir, Kirkuk’s police commander. No security forces or civilians were wounded in that fighting, Qadir said, though it left large portions of the mall burned. Eleven storekeepers hid inside the mall during the attack, scared to leave, he said. The fighting in Kirkuk began Wednesday, when authorities said a car bomb exploded at the gates of the Police Intelligence Department. A suicide […]

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Kurdistan pipeline exports imminent despite Baghdad outcry

Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz (L) and Kurdistan Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani attend the opening of the CWC Kurdistan-Iraq Oil and Gas conference in Erbil on Dec. 2, 2013. (RAWAZ TAHIR/Iraq Oil Report/Metrography) As Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region continues to pump oil into its new export pipeline to Turkey, leaders in Erbil and Ankara have outlined a revenue-handling mechanism that appears to allow their burgeoning energy cooperation to move forward without Baghdad’s approval.The impending exports and sales threaten to undermine Baghdad’s top oil policymakers, who have long argued that all exports must be conducted under central government authority – a position they have reiterated forcefully … 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 .

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Iran, Iraq put OPEC on notice of big oil increases

Iran and Iraq on Tuesday put OPEC on notice of substantial oil output increases to come, saying others in the producer cartel will need to give way to make room for them. Speaking ahead of an OPEC meeting, oil ministers for the two countries — rivals as the group’s second and third biggest producers after Saudi Arabia — said they were targeting 4 million barrels a day, growth of about one million bpd apiece. Neither country can expect to reach those goals any time soon, but both are keen to prepare the ground for special treatment should the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting […]

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31 killed, 73 wounded in bomb attacks in Iraq

At least 31 people were killed and 73 others wounded Tuesday in bomb attacks in Iraq, including three suicide bombings, police said. The deadliest attack occurred in the town of Tarmiyah, some 40 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, when two roadside bombs went off outside the local government building, apparently in an attempt to pave the way for two suicide bombers to enter the building, a local police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. A police force guarding the government building opened fire on the suicide bombers and forced them to blow up their explosive vests at the gate of the building, killing a total of nine people, including five policemen, and wounding 11 people, the source said. Meanwhile, another coordinated suicide bomb attacks took place in the city of Tikrit, the capital of Salahudin province, when a car bomb […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple