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The Turkish government gavethe United States less than an hours notice before conducting strikes on partner forces in Iraq and Syria, the U.S. military said on Wednesday, stepping up its criticism of airstrikes the United States said endangered American personnel.

Col. John Dorrian, a U.S. military spokesman, said the lead time failed to provide adequate notice to reposition American forces or warn Kurdish groups with whom the United States is partnering against the Islamic States.

Thats not enough time. And this was notification, certainly not coordination as you would expect from a partner and an ally in the fight against ISIS, he said, using an acronym for the Islamic State.

American officials expressed indignation at the Turkish bombing, which killed as many as 20 Kurdish fighters in Syria and, according to the U.S. military, five Kurdish peshmerga troops in a coordinated attack across the border in northern Iraq. According to the Turkish government, both attacks targeted members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which both Ankara and Washington consider a terrorist group.

A defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss operations, described the assault as a massive, highly coordinated attack involving more than 25 strike aircraft.

In Syria, the Turkish jets targeted leadership sites used by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-dominated force that has emerged as the United States primary military partner in Syria, according to a second U.S. official. Turkey has objected to that alliance because, it says, the SDFs largest component, the Peoples Protection Units (YPG), is a PKK affiliate.

Despite the Turkish position, Dorrian signaled the United States would continue its support for the SDF, as it would for Iraqi government troops across the border.

Theseare forces that have been integral in fighting ISIS. Theyve been reliable in making progress against ISIS fighters under very difficult and dangerous conditions, he said. They have made many, many sacrifices to help defeat ISIS and that keeps the whole world safer. So that is our position on that.

In Syria, U.S. troops were within six miles of the targeted area, far enough to be out of danger but close enough to cause concern about the potential for unintended bloodshed, Dorrian said. While U.S. forces were not as close to the Turkish target area in Iraq, U.S. officials expressed criticism of the fact that the strike was conducted without the consent of the Iraqi government.

Dorrian spoke hours after the Turkish embassy in Washington issued a statement from the countrys Foreign Ministry detailing what it said were the steps Turkey took to make the United States and other countries active in Syria aware of its plans, saying the United States and Russia were duly informed through both military and diplomatic channels.

That included, the ministry said, notifying the U.S. air command center in Qatar and speaking with the head of the U.S. military. A spokesman for Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, could not immediately confirm whether Dunford had spoken with the Turkish officer.

U.S. officials provided a different characterization of what occurred, saying that American personnel had immediately expressed their objections to the Turkish plans when they were notified.

Adding to the U.S. frustration, Dorrian said Turkey had provided only general information ahead of time about where the strikes would occur and who they would target. Less than an hour of notification is an inadequate amount of time to have our forces leave the ops box area that was identified which was a very large ops box, he said, referring to the area in which U.S. forces are operating. So it was an unsafe way to conduct operations.

Dorrian said thatthe United States has sent military personnel to the affected site in Syria to assess the damage to SDF forces.

Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.

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Pentagon expands rebuke of Turkey over Iraq, Syria strikes - Washington Post

PARIS Iraq will go with the consensus reached by OPEC when the oil exporter group meets in Vienna next month to discuss extending production cuts, the country's oil minister said on Thursday.

"Now we're going on the 25th of May to OPEC and we're definitely going to be in line with OPEC's final decision and collective decisions," Jabar al-Luaibi told a conference in Paris.

Iraq, the second-largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, was in full compliance with the OPEC-led supply pact reached last year and has achieved about 97 percent of its output reduction target, Luaibi said.

"Iraq is fully committed and Iraq is in full compliance with OPEC members," Luaibi said.

He added that the OPEC-led cuts were gradually leading to a long-awaited rebalancing of the oil market.

OPEC, Russia and other producers originally agreed to cut production by 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) for six months from Jan. 1 to support the market and to bring a supply glut into check.

The producers are expected to prolong the pact for a further six months when they meet in May.

Luaibi said the OPEC decision to cut did not mean countries should stop developing their oil industries.

Earlier this month, Luaibi said Iraq planned to raise its oil output capacity to 5 million bpd before the end of the year.

(Writing by Ahmad Ghaddar; Editing by Dale Hudson and David Goodman)

NEW YORK U.S. refiners have come out of maintenance season betting that big exports to Mexico and South America will help alleviate high product inventories and boost margins as the critical summer driving season nears.

CALGARY, Alberta As global oil majors pull out of Canada's oil sands, domestic companies are buying up assets and betting technology and economies of scale will enable them to turn a profit despite low crude prices.

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Iraq says will go with consensus at next OPEC meeting - Reuters

The hospital opened by Doctors Without Borders/Mdecins Sans Frontires (MSF)in Qayyarah, Iraq, last December is around 35 miles (60 km) south of Mosul. Distant enough not to hear the sounds of airstrikes and rocket fire, but sufficiently close for the wounded to be brought in when medical facilities nearer the front line are no longer able to cope.

On February 18, the Iraqi army launched an offensive with the support of the U.S.-led coalition to retake west Mosul, the part of the city still under control of the so-called Islamic State.

The fighting has claimed many victims, and large numbers of people continue to flee from neighborhoods being gradually recaptured by the army. Some of those displaced by the fighting have ended up in camps in Qayyarah. The MSF team is now caring for patients from west Mosul, displaced persons camps, Qayyarah town, and the region.

The MSF team treats medical and surgical emergencies as the hospital in Qayyarah has an emergency room, operating theater and inpatient departments. The level of activity is intensebetween January and March, more than 3,750 patients were admitted to the emergency room.

A four-bed intensive care unit was recently opened to provide care for burn victims, patients in shock and other critical conditions.

The team in the emergency room sees patients wounded by airstrikes, explosions, mortar fire and land mines. Away from major roads, there are still mines that occasionally injure children, farm workers and shepherds. In west Mosul, whole families sometimes fall victim to the fighting.

Below, MSF emergency doctor Ana Leticiarecalls the story of a family caught in an explosion while trying to escape west Mosul.

The mother was in a state of shock when she arrived. Her 12-year old daughter looked after her younger brothers and sisters while waiting for her mother to be cared for by the MSF psychiatrist and get better.

MSF has set up mental health consultations in Qayyarah for patients from the hospital and displaced persons camps. The teama psychiatrist, two psychologists and a counsellortreat adults and children alike.

Psychiatrist Jolle Vernet set up the provision of mental health care in the hospital."People have endured extremely tough situations," says Vernet. "And they still dont feel at all safe, particularly as the bombing hasnt stopped and there are soldiers and the sound of gunfire everywhere. They live in fear, theyre scared of reprisals. They dont know what they can say or who they can say it to."

Many child patients are suffering from intense distress and displaying behavioral issues as a result, she says. "It was even harder for the parentsin reality mostly mothers, as the fathers were no longer with them. They didnt have the strength to cope with their childrens pain and emotions. So our work was not just treating the child, but also treating the mother too, and child and mother together.

MSF hospital in Qayyarah is currently the only hospital structure properly set up to receive children in the area of Ninewa. Around half of all patients receiving treatment in the emergency room are under the age of 15.

Of the 192 patients who attended a mental health consultation from the beginning of February to mid-April, 30 were children under the age of 13.

8-year-old Duha and her family lived in west Mosul. Last month, their home was hit in an airstrike. Her mother, father and 16 other people in the house at the time were all killed in the bombing.

Duha was the sole survivor. A neighbor dug her out of the rubble, but her head, hands and one leg were severely burned. She now lives in east Mosul with her uncle who brings her to the hospital regularly to have her dressings changed.

As the Iraqi army advanced into west Mosul, many families were able to escape. The MSF team has been seeing children with acute malnutrition, affected by food shortages in besieged West Mosul.

To treat malnourished children, MSF has set up a 12-bed therapeutic feeding center in Qayyarah hospital. Most of the children are under six months old, explains Ana Leticia, MSF emergency doctor.

Since the start of the military offensive to recapture Mosul in October 2016, MSF teams have increased medical and humanitarian assistance in Ninewa governorate. Across the country, MSF is working alongside Iraqi health staff in 10 governorates to ensure that the population has access to emergency medical care, including mother and child care.

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Iraq: MSF treating emergencies in Qayyarah hospital - Doctors Without Borders

Saudi Arabia, the worlds biggest crude exporter, is losing market share to Iraq and Iran as a result of OPECs agreement to curb supplies to bolster prices, according to the head of research at Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

If youre talking about winners, you can count Iran and Iraq, Christof Ruehl said Wednesday at a conference in Dubai.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to production limits for most of its members at a meeting in November and brought 11 other nations on board with the deal in December. Saudi Arabia, OPECs biggest producer, agreed to cut output by 486,000 barrels a day while Iraq said it would cut 210,000 barrels a day. Iran was permitted to increase output by 90,000 barrels a day, according to the OPEC accord.

Saudi Arabia knew it would lose share because Irans production was on the rebound, said Robin Mills, founder of Dubai-based consultancy Qamar Energy. The Saudis agreed to production cuts at a time when Iranian production was at a high.

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Saudi Arabia cut production from about 10.5 million barrels a day in December to as low as 9.87 million daily in January and 10 million a day last month, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Irans output rose to 3.8 million barrels a day in January, the highest since April 2010, the data show. The Persian Gulf country insisted it needed to recover its market share following years of sanctions that penalized its oil industry until January 2016. Iraq pumped 4.43 million barrels a day in March, down 200,000 barrels for the year, according to the data.

The struggle over market share is most pronounced in Asia, according to Mills and Edward Bell, commodities analyst at Dubai-based lender Emirates NBD PJSC. Iran and Iraq increased crude sales to China last month, while Saudi Arabia slipped behind Russia and Angola as the largest suppliers to the nation, data released Tuesday by the General Administration of Customs show.

The Saudis are losing out because other countries are able to squeeze out more production, Bell of Emirates NBD said. Saudi Arabia is cutting crude pricing to Asia to hold on to its share, Bell said.

The OPEC market share battle hasnt gone away, he said.

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Saudi Arabia Seen Losing Market Share to Iran, Iraq on Oil Cuts - Bloomberg

A picture taken on March 14, 2017 in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul shows a drone carrying two grenades flying in a test flight by Iraqi forces which aim to use it against Islamic State militants.(Photo: Aris Messinis, AFP/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON Iraqs military has turned the tables on the Islamic States drone tactics by improvising itsown unmanned aircraft to drop grenades and other small munitions on the militantsin the key battle for Mosul, U.S. officials say.

The development comes as the threat from Islamic Statedroneshas been effectively neutralized with the help of U.S. and coalition forces, which rushed counter-drone technology to the battle for the city.

Earlier this year Mosul became a proving ground for the emerging threat of cheap drones used by terror groups. The militants were using the small unmanned aircraft for both attacks and surveillance.

At the peak in February, the Islamic State deployed 10to 15 drones a day against Iraqi security forces as they fought to clear militants from Mosul, said Air Force Col. John Dorrian, a military spokesman in Baghdad.

The number of militant drones is now down to about one or two a day, principally for surveillance, he said. During the past two weeks there have been no recorded incidents of militants using an armed drone in Iraq or Syria, according to coalition military statistics.

The militants use of drones in Mosul highlighted the danger commercial drones have in the hands of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

Theyve actually gone to almost swarm-level capability in a couple of cases, Lt. Gen. Michael Lundy, commander of the Combined Arms Center, said last month. The Army has been studying the militants' use of drones in Mosul to counter the threat in the future.

Its a serious concern, said Seth Jones, a counterterrorism expert at RANDCorp. A range of terror organizations are able to buy off-the-shelf drones and use them against the United States and its allies.

Jones said terror groups are likely looking for ways to put larger munitions on the drones. In Iraq and Syria, the militants mostly used small grenade-sized munitions or mortar shellson drones.

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Even the smaller munitions can be deadly. In October a drone with an explosive hidden in it killed two Kurdish soldiers and injured two French Special Forces advisers who were with them. The explosive was detonated after the drone had been downed by Kurdish forces.

Iraqi forces have not released data on how many deaths or injuries have been caused by drones. No U.S. forces have been injured by drones in Iraq or Syria.

Their main benefit is surveillance, particularly in a crowded city like Mosul. The small aircraft, which have a range of several miles, can maneuver through tight streets and alleys to see what lies ahead. Iraqi forces now usethem to identify militant snipers, which have been a significant threat in western Mosul.

The militants have no way of blunting the use of drones by Iraqi forces. The enemy doesnt have any anti-drone technology other than try to blaze away at the drones, Dorrian said.

The small quad copters and other small commercial aircraft dont compare to the level of sophistication and firepower of U.S. Predators and Reapers, which can stay in the skyfor long periods of time and fire weapons with precision.

The militants have been indiscriminate in their use of drones, the U.S. military said. They just dropped (munitions) and they didnt care who they dropped it on, said Marine Brig. Gen. Rick Uribe, director of the Combined Joint Operations Center-Baghdad.

But the weaponized drones have captured headlines, producing a propaganda benefit for ISIS. Its more of a psychological effect than anything else, said Patrick Martin, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War.

Read more:

Iraqi troops capture largest neighborhood in western Mosul

This Iraqi sniper picks off ISIS fighters as they hide behind human shields

Iraqi residents worry about rebuilding after ISIS is gone

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Iraqi forces now attacking ISIS militants with drones in Mosul - USA TODAY