أرشيف الوسم : Baghdad

The UK will send more security force personnel to Iraq to train Iraqi forces in the battle against extremist group Islamic State (IS), UK Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said on Wednesday. Britain has been supporting the US-led air strikes to force IS militants out of Iraq and has already trained Kurdish fighters in the country. “We will be stepping up …

Islamic State (IS) militants on Wednesday executed over 40 people from a tribe the Albu Nimr tribe, which had battled them in the province of Anbar. According to local sources, the tribesmen were killed in the Heet region to the northwest of Baghdad, which had been overrun by the IS earlier in the month. However, there are no hard statistics …

When Islam was at its strongest, it was also at its most open-minded By Gerard Russell – Onfaith Ours is the oldest religion in the world,” said the Mandaean high priest to me in 2006, when we met during my diplomatic posting to Baghdad. He did indeed turn out to be the religious leader of an ancient people whose traditions …

A political coalition on Monday said that an Iranian lawmaker, a close associate of Ali Hosseini Khamenei, made remarks which revealed the regime’s role in developments in Yemen and plans for “exporting terrorism and fundamentalism”. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) quoted Alireza Zakani referring to the Islamic Republic’s plan of “’unifying Muslims by Islamic Revolution”. On its …

Elite Iraqi soldiers supported by US jets battled extremist forces near capital city Baghdad on Wednesday as Washington plans its strategy for expanded operations against the Islamic State (IS). US President Barack Obama prepared to meet with US military commanders and take crucial decisions in his strategy against the IS while trying to stay true to his promise of not …

Iraqi soldiers regained control of part of an important highway connecting Baghdad to the northern part of the country, where human rights organization Amnesty International said extremists have been carrying out ethnic cleansing. Iraqi soldiers backed by militia have been on a push north after ending an extremist siege by fighters from the Islamic State (IS) in the Shi’ite Turkmen …

Syria on Monday said that it was willing to work with the international community against “terrorism” as the United Nations accused extremists in Iraq of conducting an “ethnic and religious cleansing”. UN human rights Chief Navi Pillay leveled the accusations as Kurdish peshmerga forces forced back militants from the Islamic State (IS) northeast of Baghdad only a day after they …

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State urged Iraq’s newly appointed prime minister-designate Haidar al-Abadi to quickly form an all-inclusive government. “We are urging him to form a new cabinet as swiftly as possible and the U.S. stands ready to support a new and inclusive Iraqi government and particularly its fight against ISIL. Let me be very clear, we have always …

Moqtada Sadr, one the most influential Shi’ite clerics in Iraq, on Friday claimed that extremists were poised to attack Iraqi capital Baghdad and promised to send his men to fight for the capital. “There are terrorist groups that have completed their preparations for a breakthrough into Baghdad.We are ready to defend the city, we are ready to supply forces and …

On Friday, a fierce battle between extremist group Islamic State (IS) and federal forces caused the deaths of seventeen Iraqi soldiers, while bombing in and around Baghdad killed 16 others. The clashes in the town of Jurf al-Sakhr, a settlement situated alongside the Euphrates River and a road that links Sunni militant strongholds to Shi’ite holy sites to the south …