Iraq: Gunfire on FlyDubai plane unintentional
A FlyDubai #39;s passenger plane carrying 154 passengers came under fire after landing at Baghdad International Airport on Monday evening. The spokesman of Baghdad Operations Command said that...
By: CCTV News
Read the rest here:
Iraq: Gunfire on FlyDubai plane unintentional - Video
Smoke rises from the Syrian border town of Kobani (Ayn al-Arab) following the US-led coalition air strikes against the Islamic State targets near Mursitpinar border crossing on Friday in Suruc, Turkey. Photograph: The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images
The US and its coalition partners have launched another round of air strikes against Islamic State (Isis) militants in Iraq and Syria, conducting 26 strikes since early on Friday.
In a statement released on Saturday from the Combined Joint Task Force leading the military operation, officials said 13 strikes hit in Syria and also 13 hit in Iraq.
In Syria, 12 air strikes targeted Isis positions near Kobani. In Iraq, five strikes hit near Mosul and five near Tal Afar, the statement said.
US Central Command later said that of the strikes near Kobani, a town on the Turkish border which has been contested for months, 12 airstrikes struck eight Isis tactical units and a large Isis unit and destroyed an Isis vehicle, an Isis building, and eight Isis fighting positions.
The other strike in Syria was near al-Hasakah, Central Command said, and destroyed an Isis mobile oil drilling rig.
Central Command also detailed targets hit in Iraq, which it said included Isis weapons production facilities, units, roads and vehicles.
All aircraft returned to base safely.
Related: John Kerry: tide beginning to turn against Islamic State
Strikes against Isis began in Iraq on 8 August and Syria on 23 September, and have been carried out by a multinational coalition, including Arab countries and under US leadership.
Read more:
US-led task force launches 26 air strikes against Isis in ...
(Bloomberg) -- The battle for customers among OPEC members that helped trigger oils collapse is about to escalate.
Iraqi crude production is climbing from a 35-year high as it adds growing Kurdish supplies to its exports, while southern oilfields remain unscathed by Islamic State militants. Finding buyers for the new output means offering more attractive terms than rivals in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, say Citigroup Inc., DNB ASA and Barclays Plc.
Oils biggest slump in six years gained momentum in October as a wave of discounts by Middle Eastern producers signaled OPEC members were intent on defending market share against booming shale output from the U.S. The price of Saudi crude for Asian buyers was cut to the lowest in at least 14 years last month, a move followed by Iraq, Kuwait and Iran.
This price war is not just between Saudi Arabia and the U.S., its also intra-OPEC, said Seth Kleinman, head of European energy research at Citigroup in London. Iraq and the U.A.E and everyone else is cutting prices to defend their own market share. Iraq is ramping up production and has rising volumes to move.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell 48 percent last year, the biggest drop since 2008 amid a production surplus estimated by OPEC at about 1.5 million barrels a day. The slide continued this month to the lowest since March 2009. Brent for March settlement lost 44 cents to $49.16 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London at 9:27 a.m. local time on Wednesday.
The discount on shipments of Iraqs Basrah Light grade to Asia -- at $3.70 a barrel to the average of regional benchmarks Oman and Dubai crude in February -- remains near the widest since at least August 2003. Saudi Arabia set the discount for its Arab Medium blend at $2.80 on Jan. 5.
Iraqi crude output has hit a record 4 million barrels a day, Oil Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said in Baghdad on Jan. 18. Average monthly output rose 290,000 barrels a day to 3.7 million in December, the most since 1979, the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based adviser to 29 developed nations, said in a report on Jan. 16.
Exports from the Kirkuk oil field, which neighbors the Kurdish region in northeast Iraq, resumed for the first time since March following a deal in December between the central government and the semi-autonomous Kurds. Kirkuk crude, halted amid attacks by Islamist fighters, can now be shipped to Turkey using the Kurds pipeline. Exports from the south have also surged and are scheduled to reach a record 3.3 million barrels a day in February, the IEA estimates.
OPEC agreed in Vienna on Nov. 27 to maintain its production ceiling of 30 million barrels a day, resisting calls for cuts from members including Venezuela and Libya. The group pumped 30.2 million barrels a day last month, exceeding its target for the seventh consecutive month as Iraq expanded output by 150,000 barrels a day, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Iraq needs to keep increasing oil production because tumbling global prices have reduced government revenue by about 50 percent, Deputy Prime Minister Rowsch Nuri Shaways said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 21.
Link:
Iraq Oil Surge to Fan OPEC Rivalry That Triggered Slump
Iraqi officials on Tuesday promised to investigate reports that at least 70 civilians, including women and children, were slain during a bloody government campaign to seize control of the embattled eastern province of Diyala.
Sunni Muslim tribal leaders have accused Shiite Muslim militias working with government forces of carrying out a massacre near the Sunni-dominated village of Barwanah.
"These criminal acts aim to rip apart the social fabric of Diyala," provincial Gov. Amer Majmaii said in a statement released Tuesday, according to Sumariyah News, an Iraqi media outlet.
The ethnically and religiously mixed province has been the site of sectarian clashes since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 ousted former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Islamic State militants swept into the province last year as part of their advance through northern and eastern Iraq. Pro-government militias have been systematically pushing the militants out of Diyala for months.
Gen. Jamil Shamri, provincial police chief, said in a statement released by the Interior Ministry that Diyala was now "empty of Daesh after liberating the last of areas under its control in the villages north of the district of Muqdadiyah." Daesh refers to Islamic State.
According to the Reuters news agency, Sunni tribal sheiks from Muqdadiyah on Monday blamed the Shiite militias for acting with impunity.
"The security forces are unable to restrain them," said Sagar Jabouri, a Sunni tribal leader, Reuters reported. "We will defend ourselves. We are afraid we will be next."
A spokesman to the Interior Ministry, reached by telephone in Baghdad, denied the charge, saying that "Daesh is trying to confuse matters and turn public opinion against the pro-government forces."
The incident again underscores the risk posed by Baghdads heavy reliance on Shiite militias to battle Islamic State, a Sunni group that has tried to win over disaffected members of the country's Sunni minority. Islamic State has been accused of mass killings of Shiites, whom the group views as apostates. The militants also seek to topple the Shiite-dominated national government in Baghdad.
Original post:
Iraq officials vow to investigate alleged massacre of Sunnis