Iraq

LHEIBAN, Iraq (AP) — As a backhoe dug up the ground to build trenches, Iraqi soldiers scanned the vast farming tracts for militants; not far away, their Kurdish counterparts did the same.

The scene earlier this month in the small northern Iraqi farming village of Lheiban was a rare instance of coordination between the federal government and the semi-autonomous Kurdish region. The two sides were fortifying a joint position aimed at defending the village against attacks by the Islamic State group.

Iraq and Iran, on Wednesday, swapped the remains of 61 soldiers killed during the war between the two neighbours in the 1980s, Anadolu News Agency reports.

Iraq "received the remains of four unidentified martyrs found in the Iranian territories," the Iraqi Defence Ministry said in a statement.

The Ministry said the remains of 57 Iranian soldiers were handed over to the Iranian side.

The remains were found during a joint search operation in the provinces of Basra and Maysan in southern Iraq, the Ministry said.

RANYA, Iraq (AP) — The specter of unemployment haunts both students and teachers at universities in northern Iraq. Many speak of growing numbers of empty seats in classrooms across the semi-autonomous Kurdish region — seats once occupied by students who have left for Europe.

Those who remain, like 21-year-old law student Zhewar Karzan, are making plans to leave.

10 Dec 2021; MEMO: Iraq, on Thursday, announced the end of the combat mission of the US-led international coalition forces against Daesh, Anadolu News Agency reports.

"Today we ended the last round of dialogue with the international coalition, which we started last year, to officially announce the end of the combat missions of the coalition forces and their withdrawal from Iraq," Iraq's National Security Adviser, Qassem Al-Araji said in a tweet.

BASRA, Iraq, Dec 7 (Reuters) - A bomb killed four people in the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Tuesday, the first such attack in years in a part of the country that has enjoyed relative stability, and a senior official said Islamic State militants were suspected of carrying it out.

The blast, near a major hospital in the predominantly Shi'ite Muslim city, was caused by a motorbike rigged with explosives, the military said in a statement, citing preliminary information.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

RANYA, Iraq (AP) — Shoes pile up outside the Mamand home in northern Iraq from relatives and friends who have streamed inside to offer solace as they anxiously await news of the family’s young son, who was lost at sea somewhere between France and Britain.

Most are afraid to articulate their fear that 18-year old Twana Mamand may have drowned along with at least 26 others when their flimsy boat sank near the French coast last week. They had been bound for Britain with hopes of starting new lives.

BAGHDAD, Dec 2 (NNN-NINA) – Iraqi Ministry of Oil said yesterday that, the country exported 98.19 million barrels of crude oil in Nov, bringing in revenues of about 7.59 billion U.S. dollars.

The average selling price for crude oil in the month was 77.33 dollars per barrel, according to a ministry statement, citing statistics of the State Organisation for Marketing of Oil.

01 Dec 2021; MEMO: The manual recount of contested ballot boxes in Iraq's parliamentary elections held in October have only affected five seats in five provinces, Iraq's Independent High Elections Commission (IHEC) said yesterday.

DOHUK, Iraq (AP) — The smuggler had said the car would come in 10 minutes, but Zaid Ramadan had been waiting in the dense forest straddling the Poland-Belarus border for three hours, desperate for signs of headlights in the mist — and a new life in Europe.

His pregnant wife Delin shivered under a blanket. She had been against leaving their life in Dohuk, a mountainous province in the northern Kurdish-run region of Iraq. The journey was perilous, expensive and the change too drastic, she told him.

US forces will remain in Iraq after the scheduled end of combat operations on 31 December, Newsweek has reported. A spokesperson for the US Department of Defence, Navy Commander Jessica McNulty, said that Washington's position on this remains unchanged.

According to Newsweek, McNulty made her remarks in response to a letter to the magazine last week from an alliance of Iraqi paramilitary factions known as the "Iraqi Resistance Coordination Commission". They expressed their disappointment at the lack of a US military drawdown.