Iraq - Page 9

A grenade attack targeting Shia Muslim pilgrims took place near Baghdad’s al-Aimmah bridge early Tuesday, killing one and seriously injuring another ten.

Pope Francis urged Iraqi Christians in the beleaguered town of Qaraqosh Sunday to hold on to their hope in the ultimate triumph of Jesus Christ.

ROME — Pope Francis visited the war-torn city of Mosul on Sunday, warning the devastation of the Christian community is an incalculable loss for the country and the region.

Pope Francis met with the Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali al-Husayni al-Sistani in southern Iraq early Saturday and thanked him for his vocal defense of human life.

An Iraqi migrant doctor in the French commune of Bourges who has been accused of sexual assault by a patient has alleged a “racist conspiracy” against him.

Former Green Beret and Gold Star husband Joe Kent told Breitbart News there is a sharp divide between America First principles and the actions of the Joe Biden administration.

ROME — Pope Francis met with Iraqi Catholics in Baghdad Friday, urging them to be strong and hopeful even in the midst of ongoing sufferings.

BAGHDAD — Pope Francis arrived in Iraq on Friday to urge the country’s dwindling number of Christians to stay put and help rebuild the country after years of war and persecution, brushing aside the coronavirus pandemic and security concerns to make his first-ever papal visit.

The Pentagon called the most recent rocket attacks on an Iraqi base where U.S. forces are stationed “a troubling development” but said there is no desire for escalation.

Pope Francis sent a video message to the Iraqi people Friday, declaring that Saturday he undertakes his journey to Iraq as a “pilgrim of peace.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in his first major foreign policy speech Wednesday highlighting the Biden administration’s goals, promised not to rely on “costly military interventions” to promote democracy, an approach the secretary said has not worked.

Anti-government protests launched in southern Iraq last week spread to the national capital, Baghdad, on Monday, the Kurdish news agency Rudaw reported.

ROME — Pope Francis said Wednesday he is traveling to Iraq this week come hell or high water to avoid letting the Iraqi people down.

A military base in western Iraq that hosts U.S.-led coalition troops was struck multiple times in a rocket attack early Wednesday morning, the coalition and Iraqi military confirmed.

Turkey summoned Iranian Ambassador Mohammed Farazmand in Ankara on Sunday to complain about Iran’s criticism of Turkish military operations in Iraq. The complaint concerned demands by another Iranian ambassador, Iraj Masjedi in Baghdad, for Turkey to suspend operations and remove all of its forces from Iraqi territory.

The Biden Administration said it had legal authority to conduct lethal airstrikes in Syria under Article II and United Nations Charter 51.

PressTV, an Iranian government propaganda outlet, suggested President Joe Biden’s decision to bomb targets tied to Iran-backed militias in Syria on Thursday may be linked to “numerous reports” of American support for the Islamic State.

China’s state-run Global Times newspaper mocked President Joe Biden on Friday, quoting his declaration, “America is back,” in a headline about his decision to bomb Syria on Thursday evening.

Shamima Begum, the teenager who joined ISIS and shocked with comments on beheading non-Muslims cannot return, the Supreme Court ruled.

President Joe Biden ordered his first military airstrikes on Thursday, targeting “multiple facilities” used by by Iranian-backed militia groups in eastern Syria, according to the Pentagon.

Police in Slovenia have discovered 13 migrants from Iraq who were hidden in a cargo truck, suffering from dehydration and a lack of oxygen.

Pope Francis will travel next month to Iraq, a land devastated by ongoing conflicts that have uprooted more than a million Christians in just two decades, France 24 reports.

Members of Iraq’s persecuted Christian community attempting to return home over three years after the Islamic State’s “caliphate” fell are struggling to resettle, multiple reports highlighted Sunday, as Muslim militias and fraudsters have stolen many of their homes, while others lie in ruin.

Several “national security experts” interviewed for an essay in The Root published on Thursday, attacked the Republican Party, claiming it behaves “like a terror group,” is rife with “terrorist sympathizers,” and should be viewed as “enemy combatants.”

Pope Francis’ plans to travel to Iraq on March 5 are “unaffected” by recent violence in Baghdad and Erbil, the Vatican and Iraq’s Foreign Ministry concur.

Jens Stoltenberg, secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), announced on Thursday that another 3,500 troops will be sent to Iraq, joining 500 NATO forces already in the country. The United States currently has about 2,500 troops in Iraq.

An Iran-backed militant group in Iraq called Saraya Awlia al-Dam, or “Guardians of Blood Brigades,” quickly took credit for Monday’s rocket attack on the Erbil International Airport in the Kurdistan region.

A militia believed to be tied to the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) took responsibility on Tuesday for a rocket attack on Erbil, Iraq, that resulted in damage to the Chinese consulate there.

Islamist Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned the United States in remarks Monday to stop “siding with terrorists” for Washington’s continued support of Syrian Kurdish groups instrumental to defeating the Islamic State.

The Iraqi government has ordained a “total curfew” during the March 5-8 visit of Pope Francis following recent violent attacks in the country.

Islamic State terrorists executed a “surprise attack” on Iraqi police in Kirkuk, a multi-ethnic region in the nation’s north, late on Thursday, killing an officer and injuring at least three others according to the Kurdish outlet Rudaw.

Iranian Chief Justice Ebrahim Raeisi on Wednesday accused the U.S. government of helping the Islamic State recover its strength in Syria and spread its operatives into countries such as Iran that oppose U.S. hegemony. According to Raeisi, only Iran and the Shiite-dominated government of Iraq truly stand against ISIS.

The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, an organization founded by the former prime minister of the United Kingdom, published a report on Thursday that found terrorist militia aligned with Iran surged in numbers and influence across the Middle East after the 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The Islamic State terror group continues to pose a security threat in areas of northern Iraq disputed between Baghdad and the autonomous Kurdistan region, a leader of Kurdistan’s Peshmerga military said on Tuesday.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has deployed Peshmerga forces to northern Iraq to combat “increased threats” of attacks by Islamic State (ISIS), Kurdish news outlet Rudaw reported on Thursday.

In an interview with NPR on Tuesday former CIA operative Robert Grenier compared Trump to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.