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Islamic State fighters seized control of Iraq's biggest dam, an oilfield and three more towns on Sunday after inflicting their first major defeat on Kurdish forces since sweeping through the region in June. Capture of the Mosul Dam after an offensive of barely 24 hours could give the Sunni militants the ability to flood major Iraqi cities or withhold water from farms, sharply raising the stakes in their bid to topple Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led government.

IRBIL, Iraq -- A supposedly secret but locally well-known CIA station on the outskirts of Irbil’s airport is undergoing rapid expansion as the United States considers whether to engage in a war against Islamist militants who’ve seized control of half of Iraq in the past month. Western contractors hired to expand the facility and a local intelligence official confirmed the construction project, which is visible from the main highway linking Irbil to Mosul, the city whose fall June 9 triggered the Islamic State’s sweep through northern and central Iraq. Residents around the airport say they can hear daily what they...

Kurdistan has declared a safe-haven for Christian refugees, as Islamist militants extinguish the Christian presence in Iraq’s second city, Mosul. According to news reports, every Christian has finally been driven out of the city. Displaced Christians have expressed anger towards the international community for failing to protect them or offer asylum. One priest, who cannot be named, told religious liberty organisation, Release International, that he was furious that Britain ‘offered visas to terrorists’ but refused to grant them to Iraqi Christians. The priest was also dismayed that British jihadis were among the IS fighters. ‘There is no hope, no future....

The Kurdish region of Iraq and Turkey, border Iran, and Syria. Kurds have a well developed, effective government, parliament and security force. The region has had nearly total independence since Iraq's defeat in the 1991 Gulf War. // Snipp // Largely corrupted remnants of U.S.-trained Iraqi Army, crumbled under the Saudi-wahhabi push East. Peshmerga recovered strategic northern positions, including suburbs of now, wahhab dominated City Mosul. //Snipp// Many Kurdish Iraqi leaders believe ever blossoming federal cronyism, and recently demonstrated national defense atrophy, lay bare a chronic Humpty Dumptyism. The Nation may best function as a Republic. “I don’t think Iraq...

Azerbaijan raised in air fighter jets Saturday, August 2, 2014 | 14:58 Azerbaijan raised raised military fighter jets Tensions in the combat zone increases This morning, the Azerbaijani mass media disseminated information about the deaths of four more soldiers as a result of the attack, carried out with the Karabakh territories now occupied by Armenian FORCES. In response to these acts of sabotage Azerbaijan raised in air fighters. Aircraft were flown along the front line, told reporters at the Ministry of defense of Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, the Armenian media, citing Defense Ministry writes about massive artillery and rocket bombardment by the...

URGENT: Azerbaijan began shelling the positions of Armenians of rocket launchers Enemy carries heavy losses. The Azerbaijani army is shooting at Armenian fighting positions of small arms and artillery: grenade launchers, mortars, anti-aircraft installations, thermobaric grenades. As the Oxu.Az citing Haqqin.Az, stated in an emergency statement from the Ministry of Defense. According to the enemy suffers great losses. According to the statement, in recent days the situation on the contact line of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan escalated dramatically. Azerbaijani armed forces do not stop trying to penetrate the Armenian positions. Also frequent shelling of border settlements. Day by day the...

Azerbaijan said Friday eight soldiers had been killed in three days of clashes with arch-foe Armenia on the border and near the disputed Nagorny Karabakh region as tensions spiked in the long-running conflict. International mediators, who have for years sought to help the two countries reach a breakthrough, expressed concern over the violence, with the United States renewing a plea for the presidents from both countries to meet for talks. Azerbaijan's defence ministry said Armenian troops had ramped up their activity in the past few days and attacked Azeri positions. "Reconnaissance and sabotage groups of the Armenian armed forces attempted...

Russia challenging Saudi Arabia’s dominance in world energy market Oil will be high on the agenda at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s weekend summit meeting with George W. Bush at Camp David ­ Russian oil for US consumers, to reduce dependence on Saudi Arabia. Across the globe in Beijing, Putin’s prime minister, Mikhail Kasyanov, this week haggled with his Chinese counterpart, Wen Jaibao, on building a 2,400-kilometer, $2.5 billion oil pipeline from Siberia to China, which is crying out for energy to fuel its burgeoning economy. Saudi oil may be far cheaper to produce, but a steady supply from Russia is...

Some 150 Israeli Arabic-speaking Christians on Sunday demonstrated outside the European Union mission in Tel Aviv, demanding that the international community stop nitpicking against Israel and start combatting the severe persecution of Christians everywhere else in the Middle East. “Nations, organizations and international missions are quick to raise an accusing finger against Israel at every opportunity,” said Father Gabriel Nadaf, spiritual father of the Israeli Christian Recruitment Forum, which organized the rally. Those same nations and organizations “don’t life a finger against the ethnic cleansing of Christians in the Middle East,” the priest continued. Father Nadaf went on to explain...

A Kurdish group captured a town in Syria from Islamists on Saturday, in a battle in which at least 28 fighters were killed, most of them Islamists, Reuters reported, citing a monitoring group. If the Kurds can keep hold of Tal Brak, on a highway between the cities of Hassaka and Qamishli, it would mark a significant advance in their quest for wider control in the northeast. Online Islamist activists said fighting was still going on, but the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Kurdish People's Protection Units had taken the town. Syrian Kurds have been fighting Islamist...

Syrian Kurds have expectedly annonunced their autonomy in northern Syria's Qamishli.Syrian Kurds has declared an autonomous state in the northern Syria. The admisntration was named Cizre Canton and will have 20 different ministers. The capital of the government wil be in the city of Qamishli, with Ekrem Heso serving as president. About a month ago, Salih Muslim, the leader of Syria’s most dominant Kurdish party, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), announced that Syrian Kurds are looking to establish three separate autonomous federal states in the country’s north. The two other provinces are excepted to be Kobani and Afrin.

What does it mean? Who knows? When might we learn? Who knows? Acording to a Fox "breaking news" report, Under the deal, Iran agreed to limit its uranium enrichment to 5 percent -- the grade commonly used to power reactors. The deal also commits Iran to stop producing 20 percent enriched uranium -- which is only a technical step away from weapons-grade material -- and to neutralize its 20 percent stockpile. In exchange, economic sanctions Iran faces would be eased for a period of six months. During that time, the world powers -- Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the...

The Great American Oil & Gas Boom & the Future of Iran No country, No Nation, has ever added oil production capacity – yes ever – like the United States has in the past few years. America has gone from producing 5 Million barrels of oil per day in 2011 to over 7.5 Million barrels this past year; and will soon surpass 10 Million barrels of oil production domestically. It’s an incredible oil boom that will have a profound impact on the lives of ordinary Americans. By the time Obama leaves office, he will have presided over a country that...

A top Iranian lawmaker and cleric said that the country’s uranium enrichment program could allow it to build a nuclear weapon “in two weeks” in order to “put down Israel,” according to multiple reports in the Farsi language press. Iranian lawmaker and cleric Muhammad Nabavian said on Friday that Iran would be able to build a nuclear bomb in “two weeks” if it gets “access to 270 kilograms of 20 percent [enriched uranium], 10 tons of 5 percent, and 20 thousand centrifuges,” according to reports on Iran’s Radio Farda and in Fararu. “We are not looking for a nuclear bomb,...

One of Turkey’s largest-ever corruption investigations is underway. A public bank CEO, an Iranian businessman and the sons of the freshly resigned interior and economy ministers are among the 24 suspects arrested so far, pending trial. The Iranian businessman allegedly circumvented sanctions against Iran and sent millions of dollars to the country via Halkbank by bribing the CEO as well as the ministers through their sons. /// In a series of daily speeches after the operation began, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan blasted the probe and the investigators. He branded the probe a “dirty operation” and the policemen in charge...

There's a very big story developing in Turkey that all foreign policy mavens should be watching closely. Exactly how big remains to be seen, but the stakes are huge. At issue: Will the decade-long domination of Turkish politics by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist-leaning Justice and Development Party (AKP) continue? Or is the Erdogan era about to come crashing down, fatally weakened by scandal, infighting, and authoritarian overreach? Early Tuesday morning, police in Istanbul and Ankara carried out a wave of stunning arrests that included powerful businessmen, the sons of three cabinet ministers, and the head of...

The “deportation” of Armenians in 1915 was inhumane, and Turkey has never supported the move, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said yesterday as he made a landmark visit to the country’s long-time foe, Armenia. Accompanied by Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioğlu, Davutoğlu visited Yerevan for the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) group meeting. The top diplomat met with his Armenian counterpart, Edward Nalbandian, on the sidelines of the summit. “We are very pleased with the meeting with Nalbandian; it was candid. The primary aim is to build an environment of dialogue on a strong basis,” Davutoğlu said after the meeting, while...

AFTER 40 years of hesitation and seven hard years of reform and lobbying, Turkey is basking today in the most qualified of invitations to begin the process of joining Europe - a continent whose eastern half the Ottoman empire controlled for centuries. A European Commission report released yesterday, which paves the way for a deciding vote by the 25-member European Union at its December summit, was heavily qualified, and Turkish leaders were muted in their expressions of delight at their initial success. Presenting the decision to the European parliament last night, commission president Romano Prodi said it was a "qualified...

In mid-April, Azerbaijan’s State Border Service (SBS) reported on the successful completion of week-long tactical exercises in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea. The exercises, called “Protection of Oil and Gas Fields, Platforms, and Export Pipelines,” involved around 1,200 servicemen, 21 ships, 20 speedboats as well as eight helicopters (Defence.az, April 18). High-ranking military officials including SBS head, General-Lieutenant Elchin Gulyev, and Minister of Defense Safar Abiyev launched and attended the events. The exercises were conducted in three stages and nine tactical tasks were implemented. The first stage involved neutralizing a conventional terrorist group. The group was eliminated with...

The genteel two-storey summer retreat at the back of the Institute of Political and International Studies in one of North Tehran's most exclusive neighborhoods may seem like the perfect place of retirement for the Islamic Republic of Iran's more intellectual diplomats. But the senior Iranian diplomat and several-times former ambassador that I'm meeting there today still keeps his ears firmly to the ground. He worries over the discreet Israeli presence in North Iraq and Tel Aviv's alleged support for an independent Kurdistan that would grievously destabilize the region and separate Iraq into three ethnic entities. At the same time, he...