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A team of German and Kurdish archaeologists have uncovered a 3400-year-old Mittani Empire-era city once located on the Tigris River. The settlement emerged from the waters of the Mosul reservoir early this year as water levels fell rapidly due to extreme drought in Iraq. The extensive city with a palace and several large buildings could be ancient Zakhiku – believed to have been an important center in the Mittani Empire (ca. 1550-1350 BC)....The south of the country in particular has been suffering from extreme drought for months. To prevent crops from drying out, large amounts of water have been drawn...

The town of Hasankeyf, Turkey, will soon be only a memory. From her front door, Fatima Salkan has a sweeping view of the fruit trees, historic ruins and tidy stone compounds that run along this stretch of the Tigris River in southeastern Turkey. She tries her best not to look off in the distance, to the right. The town on the horizon, still under construction, is where she will move when the valley is flooded by a downstream hydropower dam. “Do you see all these old places?” she asks in Kurdish. “We are the owner, but today we are homeless.”...

On the banks of the river Tigris, in southeastern Turkey, sits Hasankeyf, a small village that is 12,000 years old. However, very soon, that history will come to an end. The Turkish government built a dam 60km downstream and soon Hasankeyf will be underwater. After years of fighting for their village, residents capitulated. They say they feel hopeless and humiliated, especially after the government starting using dynamite to destroy nearby cliffs over the past few weeks. Turkish authorities have also started to transport eight of the village’s key monuments to "New Hasankeyf". They say they want to preserve these artifacts...

Spooks dig for secrets of Saddam As Blair prepares to issue his dossier on Iraq's weapons, Peter Beaumont and Ed Vulliamy assess the quality of intelligence - and the difficulty of obtaining it Peter Beaumont in London and Ed Vulliamy in New York Sunday September 15, 2002 The Observer He is there at almost every official photo-opportunity with Saddam Hussein, a compact and wiry military officer, his khaki shirt rolled up to his elbows, a beret pulled across his brow. A heavy handlebar moustache hangs over a solid jaw, grey with a permanent five o'clock shadow. The recent prominence of...

The militant group called the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria seemed to surprise many American and Iraqi officials with the recent gains it made in its violent campaign to create a new religious state. But the victories achieved in the past few weeks were built on months of maneuvering along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, which define a region known as the cradle of civilization.

    Summer 2000 (8.2) Scandinavian Ancestry Tracing Roots to Azerbaijan by Thor Heyerdahl Above: Thor Heyerdahl with Peruvian children who still construct traditional boats made of reeds, the principle material that enabled early migrations on trans-oceanic voyages. Courtesy: Thor Heyerdahl. Archeologist and historian Thor Heyerdahl, 85, has visited Azerbaijan on several occasions during the past two decades. Each time, he garners more evidence to prove his tantalizing theory - that Scandinavian ancestry can be traced to the region now known as Azerbaijan. Heyerdahl first began forming this hypothesis after visiting Gobustan, an ancient cave dwelling found 30 miles ...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 26, 2007 – Coalition forces detained 10 suspects today during operations targeting al Qaeda networks along Iraq’s Tigris River Valley. The forces conducted several operations targeting associates of al Qaeda in Iraq leaders, including foreign terrorist facilitators and planners of car-bombing attacks. During the operations, coalition forces captured two wanted individuals and detained eight suspects. During one of the operations, information gathered from local citizens indicated that terrorists were using a school as a meeting location and safe house. Coalition forces briefly entered the school, but did not do any damage and left the school as it was...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9, 2007 – Coalition forces killed six terrorists and detained 21 suspects during operations over the past two days in Iraq’s Tarmiyah area and Tigris River Valley to disrupt al Qaeda senior leadership. Several synchronized raids in Tarmiyah targeted the al Qaeda network operating in the northern belt around Baghdad, including its leaders. The network is responsible for car bombings, kidnappings, publishing extremist propaganda and operating an illegal court system in the area. As coalition forces cleared a building, three men inside reached for weapons in the room. Coalition forces engaged and killed them. A related assault force...

River's abundance of corpses ruins Iraqis' appetite for carp REUTERS July 11, 2007 BAGHDAD – River fish are off the menu in Baghdad. Dead bodies frequently pulled from the River Tigris have dulled the Iraqi capital's appetite for masqouf, its popular dish of grilled carp, after it was reported that clerics had warned that the fish dined on rotting corpses. “They spread rumors about the fish, that they eat the bodies of drowned people, but this is just a rumor,” said fisherman Hussein Ahmed, 62, after setting his nets within sight of the heavily fortified Green Zone compound on the...

BAGHDAD — The young police officer’s eyes strained in the bright, late-morning sunlight as he scoured for any anomaly lurking among the reeds and plant life along the Tigris River shoreline. Life was calm Tuesday along this several-mile stretch of the Tigris. But patrols along the river aren’t always such smooth sailing, the Iraqi policeman said. “You never know what might be hiding there,” said the 20-year-old officer, part of a special operations team of the Baghdad river police unit. The policemen, whose identities are not being revealed for security reasons, make up the Baghdad River Patrol Station. Their headquarters...

BAGHDAD, Jan. 18, 2007 – Keeping the Tigris River free from criminal activity is the mission of a unique group of Iraqi policemen. An Iraqi policeman keeps an eye on one of the bridges his boat unit is tasked with protecting during a patrol on the Tigris River on Jan. 7. Photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Elisandro Diaz, USN  '(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The policemen belong to the Baghdad River Patrol Station, located along the eastern banks of the Tigris River. From there, police conduct surveillance and establish a presence on fast patrol boats, said Iraqi...

BAGHDAD — Keeping the Tigris River free from criminal activity is the mission of a unique group of Iraqi policemen. The policemen belong to the Baghdad River Patrol Station, located along the eastern banks of the Tigris River. From there, police conduct surveillance and establish a presence on fast patrol boats, said Iraqi Police Col. Alaa, the station’s commander. “Our primary mission is of a humanitarian nature,” Alaa said. To combat the transport of weapons and illegal contraband, the policemen take certain measures in their daily patrols. One critical tactic used by the river police to deter crime on the...

Intake platform and rock to protect the river bank from the ravages of the Tigris at Albow Ageel. (GRD Photo by Claude D. McKinney) The Tigris sustains her neighbors by Claude D. McKinney Gulf Region North US Army Corps of Engineers Tikrit, Iraq — Iraq has two major historic waterways coursing through its landscape. Civilization has been located along the Tigris and Euphrates for millennia. The flow of these rivers may have ebbed during some of those past seasons, but the population growth certainly has expanded, especially in recent decades. Rapid growth outstripped the former government’s ability or maybe...

Navy Riverines are in demand in Iraq to deny insurgents’ use of rivers as transport routes, avenues of escape The Navy Riverine units to be created this year will face a tough and dangerous task in Iraq, where insurgents increasingly rely on inland waterways to transport people and weapons. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which cut through the Iraqi heartland, also are vital avenues of escape for insurgents who strike in urban areas and slither away to avoid counterattacking American units. The only maritime capability now addressing the river-borne insurgents comprises little more than 100 Marine Corps reservists and fewer...

ust when things were looking up for Iraq's iconic marshlands, another threat has materialised. Iran has begun building a dyke that will threaten the water supply to the healthiest of the wetlands, the Al-Hawizeh marsh. "It will cut off a vast amount of water and remove some of the recovering marshes," says Curtis Richardson of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, who is monitoring the recovery. Richardson told New Scientist that maintaining the Al-Hawizeh marsh, which straddles the border between Iran and Iraq, is crucial because it is a refuge for species that may recolonise other marshes. The wetlands, which...

MOSUL is the good girl who went bad. Quiet in the early days of the occupation, the violence-ravaged Iraqi city has become a must-win battlefield for our enemies. The terrorists and insurgents will throw all they have left into the fight. There's no mystery involved: Mosul's the decisive point in northern Iraq. Over the long term, the city's vastly more valuable than Fallujah. Insurgent attacks, terrorist bombings and assassinations erupted last autumn and continue on a regular basis. They're not going to stop soon. After Baghdad, Mosul will remain the most bitterly contested Iraqi city in the months ahead. Every...

Al-Zarqawi's Group in Iraq Changes Name Associated Press CAIRO, Egypt - Tawhid and Jihad, the Iraqi militant group of terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, apparently has changed its name two days after announcing its merger with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida organization. An Internet statement released Tuesday under the purported new name, al-Qaida of Jihad in the Land of Two Rivers, claimed responsibility for an attack on a U.S. military convoy west of the Iraqi city of Fallujah the same day. The two rivers in the new name refers to the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in Iraq.

Ancient vessel retraces voyages of the past By Stefanos Evripidou IT LOOKS like a tree house stuck on a bamboo banana. In reality it's the incarnation of a pre-Pharaonic reed boat, designed and built to unravel the mysteries of prehistoric navigation. The Abora II drifted in to Larnaca marina yesterday. Weighing in at six- tonnes, the vessel is a totra-reed boat. It is 11.5 metres long, 3.5 metres wide and 1.5 metres deep. The man responsible for building the huge boat is Dominique Goerlitz, a biology teacher at a school in Germany. As a student, Goerlitz was fascinated by the...

It's not just the violence in Iraq that is keeping doctors busy. The country is facing an environmental crisis. One of the main problems is waste water pouring out of Baghdad's main sewage plants. Iraq's ancient sewage system collapsed during the war and insecurity is hampering efforts to repair it. Not a drop has been treated yet at the Rustumiya works, which was damaged during the war and then looted. Much of Baghdad's untreated waste, the sewage of more than two-and-a-half million people, is now flowing straight into the River Tigris. The mighty river has sustained civilisation in Iraq...

The 1st Brigade, 327th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) handed over control of the Tigris River Valley area of northern Iraq today to the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade (Stryker) 2nd Infantry Division in a ceremony at the Qayarrah West Airfield. The 1st Brigade Combat Team has worked in the area since May, and military officials detailed various contributions the team made. The unit's soldiers spent their time trying to improve the quality of life for Iraqis, officials said, and they captured people who threatened the lives of Iraqis and coalition forces. They destroyed hundreds of...