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With the U.S, Russia, and China all jostling for position in Iraq’s oil and gas industry both north and south, Iraq’s oil ministry last week reiterated its desire to have one or more foreign partners in the Mansuriya gas field. Situated in Diyala province, close to the Iran border, Mansuriya is estimated to hold around 4.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, with plateau production projected at about 325 million standard cubic feet per day. For the U.S., encouraging Iraq to optimise its gas flows so that it reduces its dependency for power from Iran is the key consideration. For...

Coalition and Iraqi forces carried out airstrikes Tuesday against an island south of Mosul in the Tigris River believed to be a safe haven for the Islamic State group in Iraq. Fireballs exploded across Qanus Island in Iraq’s Salahuddin province, as plumes of smoke billowed up into the sky, a video posted on Twitter showed. Black-clad Iraqi counter-terrorism troops are seen watching over the operation from the ground.

At least 31 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in a stampede in the Iraqi city of Karbala, as Shia Muslim worshipers commemorated Ashura on Tuesday, according to Iraq's health ministry. Thousands had jammed the streets to attend festivals marking the most important Shia holy day of the year.

Democratic White House hopeful Joe Biden's campaign said Monday that the former vice president misspoke when he said that he immediately opposed the Iraq War. "Vice President Biden misspoke by saying that he declared his opposition to the war immediately," senior campaign adviser Antony Blinken told The Washington Post for a fact-checking piece on Biden's Iraq stance. "He opposed the way we went to war and the way the war was being carried out. He has for many years called his vote a mistake and takes full responsibility for it." Biden in 2002 voted to give then-President George W. Bush...

The following is a first-person report of refugees trying to flee to Greece. It’s 10 p.m. at night and we’re boarding a Greek Coast Guard vessel on the island of Lesvos. The captain assures us we will pick up 150 Muslim refugees in the Aegean Sea tonight. It’s an every night occurrence and part of an underreported illegal immigration and refugee crisis in Europe. They come from places like Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Africa. Many Americans heard about Europe’s huge influx of refugees in 2015 and 2016. But they may not have heard the rest of the story, which Full...

Although the Bible is not an ancient history textbook, it does report events that have been confirmed by other historical works. Consider the following examples: Archeological digs and ancient Assyrian records confirm the Bible’s portrayal of King Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah (2 Kings 18:13–19:37). Until recent excavations at Tell Mardikh uncovered tablets mentioning Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:1–29), scholars dismissed the existence of both cities as a biblical legend. The Hittites were also considered a biblical legend until their capital and records were discovered in modern-day Turkey. The palace of King Sargon, an Assyrian ruler mentioned in Isaiah, was uncovered...

An American Airlines mechanic who is accused of sabotaging a commercial flight originally arrived in the United States from Iraq, Breitbart News has confirmed. On Friday, federal court records revealed that Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani allegedly tampered with a navigation system on a plane filled with 150 passengers set to take off from Miami, Florida and bound for Nassau, the Bahamas on July 17. Federal prosecutors allege that Alani put foam glue inside part of the plane’s navigation system. The alleged tampering was captured on surveillance footage that co-workers said showed Alani driving up to the part of the plane...

An organizer reads excerpts from a sacred Zoroastrian text at one of the Kurdistan Region's fire temples in Darbandikhan, Aug. 8, 2019. (Photo: Kurdistan 24/Karwan Yara) A local organization dedicated to the Zoroastrian religion and philosophy on Thursday held a special ceremony at one of the group's fire temples located in the Kurdistan Region.Members of the Basna Organization, whose efforts usually focus on preserving local archaeological sites, performed the rite in Sulaimani province’s town of Darbandikhan.During the event, participants observed a number of the religion's rituals and read some of the faith's texts and core doctrines aloud to attendees. Organizers...

Events related to Iran and Israel appear to be dominant with numerous Israeli attacks reported in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria since Saturday night. There's also been a rocket attack aimed at southern Israel from Gaza..... Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif arrived by airplane at Biarritz, France. site of the G7 summit, just after 8am Eastern US time Sunday morning.... The Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri said the Israeli drone strike reported in the suburbs of Beirut early Sunday was a: "blatant attack on Lebanon's sovereignty"..... The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke with the Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri Sunday...

KERBALA, Iraq: The match should have been cause for young Iraqis to celebrate. Their national team beat Lebanon 1-0 in the first competitive international hosted by Iraq for years in the holy city of Kerbala, complete with an opening ceremony of music and dance. Instead, the event drew high-level criticism which many of the city's youth say shows the gulf between them and the political and religious establishment. Advertisement At the opening ceremony last week for the West Asia Football Federation Championship, a tournament of Arab countries hosted by Iraq, a Lebanese woman violinist not wearing the Islamic headscarf and...

A mistrial declared in Seattle at the trial of a couple accused of attacking Antifa protesters in January 2017 at the University of Washington..... The US Justice Department announcing Tuesday that two guards on duty when Jeffrey Epstein died Saturday morning are now on "administrative leave" and that the warden of the Metropolitan Correctional Center has been reassigned.... President Trump backing down from some planned tariffs on Chinese goods September 1st..... Word from Hong Kong Wednesday morning was that some flights were delayed or cancelled at the airport, but others running normally. The authority in charge of the airport says...

Marine Raider Killed While Assisting in Iraqi Security Force Mission By: Megan Eckstein August 11, 2019 9:04 PM A Marine Raider was killed Saturday by enemy small arms fire while supporting Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq. Gunnery Sgt. Scott Koppenhafer, 35, of Mancos, Colo., died Aug. 10 in an incident that is still under investigation, according to a Pentagon announcement. Koppenhafer was assigned to the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion, part of the Marine Forces Special Operations Command out of Camp Lejeune, N.C. According to a separate statement released Saturday by U.S. Central Command, an unnamed service member was killed during...

A CIA official who had a top role during the run-up to the Iraqi war charges the White House with ignoring intelligence that said there were no weapons of mass destruction or an active nuclear program in Iraq. The former highest ranking CIA officer in Europe, Tyler Drumheller, also says that while the intelligence community did give the White House some bad intelligence, it also gave the White House good intelligence — which the administration chose to ignore

Former Miss Iraq Sarah Idan provoked the criticism of Rep. Ilhan Omar on Thursday after news surfaced that she distanced herself from the freshman Democrat from Minnesota in an interview. "Ilhan Omar does not represent me as a Muslim -- does not represent millions of Muslims in the Middle East," Idan told "The Sara Carter Show." Those comments prompted Omar to stress that she wasn't the beauty queen's representative since she didn't live in her congressional district. "Hey, I might be wrong but I don’t think you are a #MN05 resident and like that makes be not your representative," Omar...

Already missing from the news cycle is the story of Muslim leader Siraj Wahhaj, who alerted authorities to the squalid conditions in New Mexico in which his son, two daughters, another man and woman, and 11 children were living.Authorities arrived at the compound to some of the most horrifying conditions they had ever seen, and prosecutors identified the makeshift home as a training ground for militant children, including in carrying out school shootings. The imam’s son had been wanted for kidnapping his own four-year-old child, who had severe disabilities. The body of a young child was recovered from the...

Strenuous efforts by Iraqi Air Force to ensured eight Tu-22Bs – including two Tu-22Ks damaged by engine before the war – and both Tu-22Us were operational again "early the eighties" and specifically 1981-82, plus a new group of personnel was trained and there were finally enough spares and maintainers to keep the fleet at a high readiness rate. As a result, Iraqi Air Force Blinders could now fly more missions than ever before, even if the number of available air frames never again reached previous levels. In response to a direct order from the Iraqi leadership the Iraqi Air Force...

In 1678, a Chaldean priest from Baghdad reached the Imperial Villa of Potosí, the world’s richest silver-mining camp and at the time the world’s highest city at more than 4,000 metres (13,100 feet) above sea level. A regional capital in the heart of the Bolivian Andes, Potosí remains – more than three and a half centuries later – a mining city today. Its baroque church towers stand watch as ore trucks rumble into town, hauling zinc and lead ores for export to Asia. Elias al-Mûsili – or Don Elias of Mosul, as he was known – arrived in 17th-century Potosí...

Israeli warplanes bombed Iranian-linked targets in Iraq and Syria in July, the Arabic-language Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported Tuesday, quoting Western diplomatic sources. The sources told the London-based newspaper that on July 19, Israel carried out an attack on the base of an Iran-linked paramilitary group in the northern Salahuddin province of Iraq. Reports initially said that the attack was carried out by a drone and and led to the deaths of an unconfirmed number of Iranian Revolutionary Guard fighters. According to the Saudi news channel Al-Arabiya, the base housed Iranian-made ballistic missiles hidden in food refrigeration trucks. Israeli officials, including...

QAMISHLI, Syria — Since the battles against the Islamic State (IS) in Baghouz ended in March, several factors have indicated the Kurdish-led autonomous administration in northeast Syria is garnering international political support. Previously, support to that region — known as Syrian Kurdistan or Rojava — from the international coalition against IS had been limited to military and security aspects. Now, diplomatic visits have increased in frequency, actually coming weekly in the past two months, Abdul Karim Omar, head of the region's Foreign Relations Department, told Al-Monitor. Most foreign delegations visiting the self-administration area used to avoid the media and focused on receiving their countries' children and wives of IS fighters held there. But...

Baghdad (Agenzia Fides) - The Chaldean Church officially reaffirms its disapproval and its clear distancing from the formation and work of armed groups of the so-called "Christian militias". With an official declaration by the Chaldean Patriarchate sent to Agenzia Fides, it is stressed that the very idea of forming "Christian" armed militias "contradicts Christian spirituality" aimed at nourishing feelings of love, tolerance, forgiveness and peace. The pronouncement of the Chaldean Patriarchate reminds young Christians that want to contribute to the security and defense of the State, the opportunity to enlist in the ranks of the official Iraqi army or of...