The hunt for evidence that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead continued on Wednesday, while Iraqi forces battled ISIS holdouts in the officially liberated city of Mosul.
On Sunday, the Jews in the Kurdistan Region and the Diaspora, along with the State of Israel and the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Representative for the Jewish community Sherzad Omar Mamsani, issued a joint statement expressing support for the KRG’s decision to hold a referendum vote on their independence on September 25, 2017.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the Trump administration seems more willing to fight terrorism than the last one, after a meeting with President Trump this week.
Violent protests, featuring a rocket launch targeting Baghdad’s government Green Zone, killed five protesters and a policeman in the Iraqi capital this weekend. The incident triggered yet another protest Tuesday as throngs of supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr carried their colleagues’ coffins through the city streets.
Contents: Iraq: Supporters of al-Sadr and al-Maliki turn again to violence in Baghdad; Iraq’s army poised to begin Battle of Mosul in the west
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced on Tuesday that the battle to liberate the eastern half of Mosul, the Islamic State’s largest stronghold in the country, had successfully concluded.
Iraq has launched an investigation into alleged violations of human rights and other abuses against civilians purportedly committed by some of the country’s service members and their allies, including Iran-backed Shiite fighters.
Contents: In Iraq, Turkey’s artillery and possibly its jets are helping recapture Mosul from ISIS; In Syria, Turkey attacks both Kurds and ISIS near Aleppo
The battle to recapture Mosul from the Islamic State has entered its second day, with the Iraqi government reporting that 20 villages surrounding the regional capital have been liberated, but the gates of the metropolis itself remain far from participating militias.
Contents: Turkey and Iraq in dispute over Turkish participation in Mosul operation; Turkey views the Mosul operation as a security threat to Turkey; ISIS may be given a chance to escape to Syria
The government of Iraq announced at 2AM local time Monday that the initiative to eradicate the Islamic State from Mosul, the nation’s second largest city, has begun.
Contents: Iraq begins battle to recapture Mosul from ISIS; Sectarian violence may interfere with recapture of Mosul
Syrian dictator Bashar Assad said in a Friday interview with a Russian newspaper that the brutal Syrian-Russian assault on Aleppo was necessary to push “terrorists” back to Turkey, accused Turkey of illegally invading his country with military forces, and said Syria was becoming the battleground for a new Cold War between Russia and the United States.
The world nods in brief acknowledgment and goes on. After all, most people have become accustomed to hearing about terrorist attacks in Iraq that have been ongoing for over ten years now. Iraqis die barely making headlines.
Contents: Iraq declares 3 days of national mourning after massive Baghdad bombing; Iraq orders police to stop using bogus ‘bomb detectors’; Former ambassador Jim Moriarty describes the dancing people of Bangladesh
Iraqis are once again paying for political ambitions and miscalculations made on their behalf by foreign and domestic governments. After the pullout of the U.S. that led to the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS), the Iraqi government hasn’t pulled it together to fight the enemy it was left with. The ongoing battle for Fallujah to rid it of ISIS underscores this need.
The ongoing fight to retake Mosul from the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) is taking place in a political arena, rather than a battlefield, where Iraq’s rival ethnic and religious groups are duking it out over how to go about liberating the strategically important city, reports Foreign Policy (FP).
Contents: Reader question on Iran and Iraq’s Muqtada al-Sadr; European Commission expected to recommend visa-free travel for citizens of Turkey
Contents: Iraq government faces climatic Awakening era political crisis; Muqtada al-Sadr and Iraq’s Awakening era
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden made a surprise visit to Iraq on Thursday, the first in nearly five years, in an effort to bolster the American-led coalition fight against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).
Saudi Arabia’s military spokesman said on Thursday that his country’s decision to deploy ground forces in Syria was “final” and “irreversible,” despite warnings from Russia, Iran, and the Shiite government of Iraq that such a deployment could escalate the Syrian civil war into a regional conflict.
Iraqi Kurdish leaders have announced an independence referendum in November, a day after President Masoud Barzani recommended holding one before the U.S. election.
An Iran-backed Shi’ite militia was behind the kidnapping of three Americans who disappeared in Baghdad last week, Reuters reports, citing two Iraqi intelligence and two U.S. government sources.
A witness of the Iraqi army’s efforts to seize back Ramadi described a macabre scene, telling CNN dogs were eating the heads of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) jihadists killed in the fight, while those who survived are trying to use civilians, including kids, as “human shields.”
Turkey claimed it would not remove troops already in Iraq, but agreed not to send more as it continued to work with the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).
While the world waits to see if the tension between Turkey and Russia escalates, Turkey has also become embroiled in a dispute with the Iraqi government that has the potential to become more serious: Turkish troops have been crossing the border into Iraq without permission.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi met on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly debate on Monday to talk about the region’s ongoing battles against the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group.
A recent report by the Iraqi parliament blamed former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for losing the vital city of Mosul to the Islamic State, going so far as to recommend criminal charges against Maliki and his colleagues.
The Prime Minister of Iraq, Haider al-Abadi, took to Twitter on Tuesday to condemn the Turkish government for participating in a “dangerous escalation” of violence against Kurdish targets in northern Iraq, after announcing they would limit their attacks to creating an “anti-ISIS” zone in the Syrian heartland.
AAP reports that Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said her government would consider sending more troops to help battle ISIS in Iraq, but the Iraqis have been oddly slow to request assistance, even as the Islamic State overruns cities and begins lining up an attack on Baghdad.
More than 10,000 Islamic State jihadists have been killed throughout the U.S.-led air campaign that began in Iraq in August of last year and was extended to Syria the following month, said U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday.
A massive suicide bomb attack on a police base near the city of Samarra, Iraq, has killed at least 40 police officers in another blow to plans for retaking the fallen city of Ramadi from the Islamic State.
Observers have known Islamic State terrorists have managed to get their hands on Iraqi equipment, but on Sunday, the Iraqi Prime Minister revealed the stunning numbers. “In the collapse of Mosul, we lost a lot of weapons… We lost 2,300 Humvees in Mosul alone,” Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told Iraqi state television.
A video has surfaced showing Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s spokesman Rafid Jaboori literally singing the praises of Saddam Hussein more than ten years ago, leading to Jaboori’s resignation from his position.
Greece bailout talks collapse in acrimony; Egypt faces two-front war with airstrikes in Libya; Muslim versus Muslim wars in the Mideast continue to grow; Iraq army preparing to recapture Mosul from ISIS
