Iraq

BAGHDAD, Apr 22 (NNN-NINA) – Four militants of the Daesh group were killed yesterday, in an Iraqi airstrike, in a rugged area in Salahudin Province, north of the capital Baghdad, the Iraqi government said.

Acting on intelligence reports, the Iraqi armed forces launched an airstrike on abandoned houses in the al-Eith area, in the eastern part of the province and killed the four Daesh militants, according to a statement by the Federal Intelligence and Investigations Agency of the Ministry.

BAGHDAD, April 19 (Xinhua) -- Iraq said on Tuesday that the Turkish military operation in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region is a threat to Iraq's national security and a violation of its sovereignty.

The latest Turkish military operation into the Iraqi frontier without coordinating with the Iraqi federal government is unacceptable, said a statement by the Presidency.

The pending security issues in the border areas could be resolved through further coordination between the two countries and the Iraqi sovereignty must be respected, it added.

17 April 2022; MEMO: Iraq on Sunday summoned the Swedish charge d'affaires, Hakan Rooth, to protest the burning of a copy of the Muslim holy book of Quran by far-right extremists in Sweden, Anadolu reports.

On Thursday, Rasmus Paludan, the Danish leader of the far-right Stram Kurs (Hard Line) Party, burned a copy of the Holy Quran in southern Linkoping in Sweden, according to media reports.

BAGHDAD, Apr 17 (NNN-NINA) – Up to 13 people, including nine school teachers, were killed and four others wounded, in a car crash south of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, Iraqi authorities and a source said yesterday.

Iraqi Interior Ministry’s traffic directorate said, in a statement that, a 4-wheel drive vehicle and a minibus collided, as a result of inattentive driving and speeding, in the north of Babil’s province capital, Hilla, some 110 km south of Baghdad.

An earlier statement by the directorate said that, the accident took place around midnight.

BAGHDAD, Apr 15 (NNN-NINA) – An army officer and a soldier were killed, and 10 others wounded yesterday, during operations against the Daesh militants, in the northern Iraqi provinces of Kirkuk and Salahudin, a police source said.

In Kirkuk, a roadside bomb detonated near an army patrol, in the rugged area of Wadi al-Shay, some 250 km north of the capital Baghdad, killing an officer and injuring three soldiers, said Col. Mohammed al-Bazi, from the Salahudin provincial police.

14 April 2022; MEMO: Weapons from Iraq are being smuggled to Russia with the help of Iran and its militant groups throughout the Middle East, a report by the Guardian newspaper has revealed.

Citing intelligence sources and members of Iran-backed militias in Iraq, the paper reported that a number of heavy weapons – including missile defence systems and anti-tank missiles – have been sent to Russia through a land and sea route in an effort to help Moscow with its military offensive in Ukraine.

13 April 2022; MEMO: Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi has instructed the security services to monitor and prosecute traders and price manipulators and hold them accountable, following the sharp rise in prices in local markets driven by the Ukrainian crisis, Anadolu reported.

11 April 2022; MEMO: Until a few years ago, farming in southern Iraq was "as lucrative as oil", Qasim Abdul Wahad remembers, and his one-hectare farm plot in the Governorate of Basra produced enough to feed his family of eight.  Now dust kicks up under his feet as he walks through his land, after worsening extreme heat and drought linked to climate change killed 90 per cent of his winter crops, including all of his okra and eggplant.

11 April 2022; MEMO: The Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese company, Power China, to build four new dams without the knowledge of the federal government in Baghdad, according to the official Iraqi newspaper, Al-Sabaah.

09 April 2022; MEMO: After Parliament failed several times this year to elect a new president, Iraq has entered a constitutional vacuum.

These events led to the end of the constitutional deadline set by the Federal Supreme Court on 6 April.

This required the court to resort to legal jurisprudence and issue a decision to continue the term of current President Barham Salih until a new president is elected.