Baghdad

Iraqi security forces fired on protesters outside a KFC restaurant in Baghdad on Monday, reportedly wounding three people and arresting 12.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said on Tuesday he wants a “quick” withdrawal of U.S. and allied forces from Iraq, but he has not set a firm deadline for withdrawal.

Iraqi Christian leaders on Monday demanded an international investigation into a fire that killed 113 people at a wedding in a predominantly Christian town last week.

Officials in Baghdad shut down all of the city’s LED advertising screens on Saturday evening after a hacker posted a pornographic video on one of them. The hacked screen was highly visible in a major traffic area of the city, so social media was quickly flooded with clips of the “immoral scenes” on display.

Muslim-majority nations expressed outrage at the desecration of a copy of the Quran in Sweden. Some prepared for street demonstrations.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani expelled the Swedish ambassador on Wednesday, even as a mob of protesters waving photos of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad and set it on fire.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo joined Breitbart News Saturday and recounted the lead-up to the Trump administration’s decision to kill Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani in January 2020, including the meeting with then-President Donald Trump to sign off on the successful drone strike.

Iraq’s Supreme Federal Court ruled Wednesday that it lacks the legal authority to dissolve Parliament, as demanded by Shiite nationalist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The much-anticipated ruling sets the stage for a showdown between Sadr’s followers and other factions, as Iraq approaches one full year without a functional government.

Powerful Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr announced his “final withdrawal” from politics on Monday, citing his frustration with the paralyzed Iraqi system.

Hundreds of protesters swarmed through the protected “Green Zone” in Baghdad on Wednesday and occupied the Iraqi Parliament building for much of the day.

A massive sandstorm blew through Iraq on Monday, forcing daily life to shut down in Baghdad and causing breathing difficulties in at least 4,000 people who sought medical treatment in hospitals nationwide, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The Lithuanian government has paid 98 illegal migrants €1,000 to board a flight to the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

BAGHDAD — Troops deployed around Baghdad on Sunday following the failed assassination attempt with armed drones that targeted the residence of Iraq’s prime minister. The attack significantly ramped up tensions sparked by the refusal of Iran-backed militias to accept last month’s parliamentary election results.

Pope Francis sent a telegram to the citizens of Iraq expressing his sorrow over the Islamic State’s deadly suicide bombing in Baghdad Tuesday that took the lives of dozens of people.

Iraqi Health Minister Hassan al-Tamimi resigned Tuesday, saying he had a “moral obligation” to do so — and a need to preserve “my career path, my family, and professional history” — after a fire at the Ibn al-Khatib Hospital in Baghdad on April 24 killed about 130 people.

Protests broke out across Iraq on Sunday to denounce the Iraqi government’s alleged “mismanagement and corruption,” which many Iraqis say they blame for a hospital fire on Saturday in Baghdad that killed at least 82 people and injured an additional 112.

Iraqi Cardinal Louis Raphaël Sako issued a bold proposal Monday for the establishment of a secular state in Iraq, separating religion from government “as the Christian West has done for a long time.”

Kurdish members of the Iraqi Parliament (MP) and another MP got into a physical brawl Monday night over the latter’s reported insults to the Kurdistan Regional Government and its leaders, Kurdish news outlet Rudaw reported.

Pope Francis said Wednesday that war is a “monster” while calling out nations who sell weapons to terrorists as co-responsible for the carnage they inflict.

A grenade attack targeting Shia Muslim pilgrims took place near Baghdad’s al-Aimmah bridge early Tuesday, killing one and seriously injuring another ten.

ROME — Pope Francis met with Iraqi Catholics in Baghdad Friday, urging them to be strong and hopeful even in the midst of ongoing sufferings.

Anti-government protests launched in southern Iraq last week spread to the national capital, Baghdad, on Monday, the Kurdish news agency Rudaw reported.

ROME — Pope Francis said Wednesday he is traveling to Iraq this week come hell or high water to avoid letting the Iraqi people down.

Pope Francis will travel next month to Iraq, a land devastated by ongoing conflicts that have uprooted more than a million Christians in just two decades, France 24 reports.

Pope Francis’ plans to travel to Iraq on March 5 are “unaffected” by recent violence in Baghdad and Erbil, the Vatican and Iraq’s Foreign Ministry concur.

The Iraqi government has ordained a “total curfew” during the March 5-8 visit of Pope Francis following recent violent attacks in the country.

The Islamic State terror group continues to pose a security threat in areas of northern Iraq disputed between Baghdad and the autonomous Kurdistan region, a leader of Kurdistan’s Peshmerga military said on Tuesday.

The Iraqi government executed three convicted Islamic terrorists Monday, amidst growing national sentiment that authorities are doing too little to stop jihad in the country.

Representatives of the Islamic State jihadist group confirmed Thursday that they organized twin suicide bombings in Baghdad, Iraq, that day that left 32 dead and over 100 injured.

Pope Francis sent a telegram to Iraqi President Barham Salih Thursday offering condolences and prayers for victims of twin suicide bombings that claimed the lives of at least 35 people.

Twin suicide bombers blew themselves up in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad Thursday morning, killing at least 28 and leaving scores injured, some of them critically.

Twin suicide bombings hit Iraq’s capital Thursday, killing at least six people and wounding at least 25 others, police and state TV said.

Anti-government protests in the southern city of Nasiriyah, Iraq, left one police officer and two demonstrators dead on Sunday, the Iraqi Army said.

Gang members and militia fighters associated with a coalition linked to Iran have escalated attacks on liquor stories — most owned by Christians and Yazidis — in Baghdad, Iraq, the Kurdish outlet Rudaw reported Sunday.

Police arrested a woman in Iraq on Monday after footage surfaced showing her throwing her two children, ages three and one, over a bridge into the Tigris River.

Shiite Muslim militia groups in Iraq offered on Sunday to halt their attacks on U.S. and coalition troops if they agree to withdraw from Iraqi soil. The offer was made hours after a coalition convoy suffered damage from a roadside bomb south of Baghdad.