Iraq

The United States will do what it sees as necessary to defend its interests after a rocket attack last week against Iraq’s Ain al-Sada airbase, which hosts American, coalition and Iraqi forces, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Sunday. Speaking on ABC’s “This Week” program, Austin said the United …

Iranian militia groups have active cells operating in the US capital Washington DC and other US cities, according to chatrooms used by the groups. Kawtheryoon Electronic Team, a Telegram network used by Iranian militia groups and supporters, claimed in a recent posting that Iranian “resistance cells are rooted even in …

Pope Francis held a historic meeting with Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani on Saturday, in a powerful appeal for coexistence in a land torn by sectarianism and violence. Francis’s meeting in the holy southern city of Najaf, during a whirlwind and risky tour of Iraq, marked the …

Pope Francis headed to Iraq on Friday for his most risky foreign trip since his election in 2012, and said he felt duty-bound to make the “emblematic” visit because the country had suffered so much for so long. An Alitalia plane carrying him, his entourage, a security detail, and about …

Tensions between the United States and Iran simmered on Wednesday after a new rocket attack against Iraq’s Ain al-Asad air base that hosts U.S. forces, which U.S. officials told Reuters fit the profile of a strike by Iran-backed militia. There were no reports of injuries among U.S. service personnel but …

Several rockets landed on Wednesday at Iraq’s Ain al-Asad air base that hosts United States, coalition and Iraqi forces, two security sources said. No casualties have been reported so far, the sources said. It was the second rocket attack in Iraq this month and came two days before Pope Francis …

The diplomatic crisis between Ankara and Tehran has escalated following the latest statement from Iran’s Ambassador to Baghdad Iraj Masjedi, who reiterated an opposition to Turkish military intervention in Iraq, a new move that highlights a broader rivalry between the two countries in the region. “Turkish forces should not pose …

In Mosul, adjacent to the Biblical city of Nineveh, four churches representing different denominations occupy a small square surrounded by low-rise houses, testament to the role Iraq’s once flourishing Christian community played. Today, all four churches are either damaged or destroyed after Islamic State militants occupied the city from 2014-2017, …

At least five protesters were killed and more than 175 people injured on Friday in clashes between demonstrators and security forces in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya, a Reuters witness and other sources said. Among the fatalities, most died from bullet wounds, a hospital source said, adding that about …

An Iran-aligned Iraqi militia group on Tuesday denied any role in recent rocket attacks against U.S. targets in Iraq, but said an attack against Saudi Arabia last month was justified. It is a rare direct denial and the first time the Kataib Hezbollah group, one of the Iraqi factions closest …

Pope Francis is due to hold an inter-religious prayer service at the ancient Mesopotamian site of Ur when he visits Iraq next week – an event local archeologists hope will draw renewed attention to the place revered as the birthplace of Abraham. Popular with Western visitors in the 1970s and …

The United States said on Monday it was outraged by rocket attacks on coalition forces and others in Iraq but stressed it would not “lash out” and would respond at a time and place of its choosing. “We have seen the reports of the rocket fire today … as you …

Several rockets hit the Iraqi military air base of Balad north of Baghdad on Saturday, injuring one Iraqi contractor, Iraqi security officials said on Saturday. No group immediately claimed the attack. It was the second salvo of rockets to hit a base hosting U.S. forces or contractors in less than …

President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday Turkey will expand its cross-border operations against Kurdish militants after 13 captured Turks were killed in northern Iraq. Turkey said on Sunday militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) killed the captives, including police and military personnel, as it was carrying out a …

A rocket attack on U.S.-led forces in northern Iraq on Monday killed a civilian contractor and injured a U.S. service member, the U.S. coalition in Iraq said, in the deadliest such attack in almost a year. The barrage of rockets hit in and near a military air base occupied by …

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan accused the United States on Monday of supporting Kurdish militants who Ankara says executed 13 kidnapped Turks in northern Iraq, adding that a U.S. statement of condemnation was a “a joke”. Turkey said on Sunday militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) executed the 13 …

Turkish soldiers conducting an operation against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants in northern Iraq have found the bodies of 13 kidnapped Turks executed in a cave, the country’s defence minister said. The identity of the 13 Turkish citizens was unclear and the minister, Hulusi Akar, said their kidnapping had not …

Russia has urged Iran to show restraint after it started producing uranium metal in a new breach of limits laid out in Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers. “We understand the logic of their actions and the reasons prompting Iran. Despite this it is necessary to show restraint and a …

Abu Arkan Ibrahim picked up a rifle and joined the Iraqi insurgency against U.S. troops when they occupied his hometown of Fallujah in 2003. He was badly burned in the fighting. Now, he fears the departure of the Americans he once battled. Over the past 17 years, the municipal employee …

Iraq’s prime minister and the GCC secretary general held talks  on Monday to boost trade and supply electricity from the Gulf. Iraqi leader Mustafa Al-Kadhimi and Nayef Al-Hajraf also discussed rebuilding Iraq after the war with Daesh. Iraq has been blighted by a woeful power supply in recent years which feeds …

Pope Francis said on Monday he is intent on making a trip to Iraq next month even if it means many Iraqi Christians won’t be able to see him in person because of COVID-19 restrictions. “I am the pastor of people who are suffering,” he told Catholic New Service (CNS), …

Iraqi security forces have killed Abu Yaser al-Issawi, an Islamic State commander who had claimed to be the leader of the group in Iraq and its “deputy caliph”, Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi said on Thursday. “Our heroic armed forces have eliminated Daesh commander Abu Yaser Al-Issawi as part of an …

Pope Francis is set for an historic meeting with Iraq’s top Shi’ite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, during a trip to Iraq planned for March, the patriarch of Iraq’s Chaldean Catholic Church said on Thursday. The visit, which eluded Francis’s predecessors, takes place amid deteriorating security in some parts …

An Iraqi-born British national has been criminally charged in New Jersey with involvement in a bribery scheme to obtain millions of dollars of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reconstruction contracts in Iraq, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Wednesday. The defendant, Shwan Al-Mulla, and his co-conspirators allegedly received confidential …

Iraq has requested emergency assistance from the International Monetary Fund and talks are ongoing between the parties, the IMF said late on Sunday. Iraqi Finance Minister Ali Allawi told Bloomberg News earlier that Iraq was in talks with the IMF for a $6 billion loan package. “The Iraqi authorities have …

Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack in a crowded Baghdad market on Thursday, killing at least 32 people in Iraq’s first big suicide bombing for three years, authorities said, describing it as a possible sign of the reactivation of Islamic State. Islamic State claimed early on Friday that two …

Iraq’s cabinet decided on Tuesday to postpone the general election to Oct. 10 from June, the state news agency INA said. The government last year set a general election for June 6, 2021, roughly a year ahead of when it would normally be held, but Iraq’s Independent High Election Commission …

Pope Francis said he is not sure if his trip to Iraq in March can take place because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He cast doubt on the trip, which would be the first by a pope to the country, in an interview with Italy’s Canale 5 broadcast on Sunday night. …

Iraq denounced on Saturday as “unacceptable” a U.S. decision to blacklist the leader of a state umbrella group for mainly Iran-backed Shi’ite militia. Washington imposed sanctions on Friday on Faleh al-Fayyad, head of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF). The U.S. Treasury accused him of leading militia that killed hundreds of …

The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on an Iraqi militia leader and former national security adviser, connecting him to human rights abuses during the 2019 anti-government demonstrations in which hundreds of protesters were killed. The U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement it was blacklisting Falih al-Fayyadh, chairman of …

Lebanese reacted angrily on Sunday to an Iranian commander’s remarks about their missile capabilities and sovereignty, with people in a pro-Hezbollah town attempting to burn a picture of the slain Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani. Amir Ali Hajizadeh boasted on Saturday that Lebanon owed its missile capabilities to Iran and …

An Israeli official on Sunday dismissed as “nonsense” an allegation by the Iranian foreign minister that Israel was trying to trick the United States into waging war on Iran. It was Israel that needed to be on alert for possible Iranian strikes on the one-year anniversary on Sunday of the …

A mock funeral procession in Iraq marked the one-year anniversary of the US drone strike near Baghdad that killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and top Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis. Thousands of mourners joined the march on the highway leading to the Baghdad airport Saturday evening where the …

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif urged U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday not to be “trapped” by an alleged Israeli plan to provoke a war through attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq. He issued the warning on the anniversary of the U.S. killing of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani …

An Iraqi oil tanker was evacuated after a mine was discovered attached to its hull, and explosives experts were working to make it safe, Iraq’s military said on Friday. The tanker was in international waters about 28 nautical miles (52 km) off Iraq’s coast in the Persian Gulf and supplying …

Georgia Senate candidate Rev. Raphael Warnock spoke at events organized by a religious group that called on Christians to repent for military action in Iraq between at least 2007 and 2009. Warnock, the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, was part of a group called the “Christian Peace Witness for Iraq,” seeking to “foster a serious …

Twenty-eight people were killed in an attack on a bus along a main highway in Syria’s Deir al-Zor province that borders Iraq, Syrian state media said on Wednesday, an incident that residents and defectors say was an ambush on an army vehicle. There were no more details of the incident …

Iran has slashed the amount of natural gas it exports to Iraq and threatened further cutbacks over unpaid bills, increasing the likelihood of more electricity shortages in Baghdad and other major cities. Iraq has been receiving 5 million cubic meters a day since Iran cut its daily exports from 50 …

US president Donald Trump’s pardoning of four Blackwater mercenaries for the killing of 14 Iraqis at a crowded traffic intersection in Baghdad in 2007 has deepened popular Iraqi resentment against the presence of US forces in the country. This has increased pressure on Iraqi prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi to reiterate …

Israel is monitoring Iran’s movement in the region and expects that the Iranian threat will likely come from Iraq and Yemen, IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Hidai Zilberman told the Saudi news website Elaph. In an interview given to Elaph and published on Friday, Zilberman addressed Iran and the tactics deployed by …

Iran’s foreign minister on Thursday dismissed U.S. President Donald Trump’s allegations that Tehran was behind the recent rocket attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. “Putting your own citizens at risk abroad won’t divert attention from catastrophic failures at home,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted. Trump said on Wednesday …

Top U.S. national security officials agreed on Wednesday on a proposed range of options to present to President Donald Trump aimed at deterring any attack on U.S. military or diplomatic personnel in Iraq, a senior administration official told Reuters. The meeting was spurred by an attack on Dec. 20. At …

Iraqi parliamentarians ratified their commitment to a resolution to expel all foreign troops from the country, as it was reported. During a ceremony marking the first anniversary of the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, lawmakers reiterated that the Pentagon must withdraw from Iraq. Deputy Fazel Yabert al-Fatlawi said his …

At least eight Katyusha rockets landed in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone in an attack targeting the U.S. Embassy, causing some minor damage on the compound on Sunday, the Iraqi military and the embassy said on Sunday. The Iraqi military said an “outlaw group” fired eight rockets. Most of the …