BAGHDAD – Iraq executed a dozen death row jihadists on the order of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, his office said Friday, in retaliation for the Islamic State group’s murder of eight captives.
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced on Saturday the end of a three-year war by Iraqi forces to drive the Islamic State jihadist group out of the country.
The Iraqi government cut autonomous Kurdistan’s direct air links with the outside world indefinitely on Friday, partially isolating the northern region after it voted a massive “yes” in an independence referendum.
Iraq’s prime minister on Tuesday ordered the Kurdish region to hand over control of its airports to federal authorities or face a flight ban, as the Kurds claimed victory for the “yes” vote in an independence referendum rejected by Baghdad and Iraq’s neighbors.
Iraq is prepared to intervene militarily if the Kurdish region’s planned independence referendum results in violence, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Saturday.
(AFP) — Saudi Arabia said on Monday that it captured three Iranian Revolutionary Guards aboard an explosive-laden boat heading to an oil platform in the Gulf, further ratcheting up tensions in the region.
The declining effectiveness of Islamic State attacks against Iraqi forces in eastern Mosul suggests the militants are starting to run out of resources with the campaign in its third month, a U.S. general told Reuters.
Islamic State militants fighting to hold on to their Mosul stronghold have displayed the crucified bodies of five people they said gave information to “the enemy”, and are back on the city streets policing the length of men’s beards, residents say.
In a significant escalation of the battle for Mosul, elite Iraqi special forces joined the fight Thursday, unleashing a pre-dawn assault on an Islamic State-held town east of the besieged city, and the US military announced the first American combat death since the operation began.
The Iraqi government has declared three days of national mourning after a huge bomb in Baghdad killed 165 people and injured 225 others.
