Iran is bolstering its influence in Iraq by moving in leaders of its proxy terrorist organizations Hamas and the Yemeni Houthi movement, the left-wing New York Times reported on Sunday — days after Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian concluded a visit to the neighboring country.
President Nechirvan Barzani, who presides over the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq, warned in conversation with a German legislative delegation that the Islamic State remains a “serious threat” to the country, the KRG revealed in a press release on Wednesday.
Denis Pushilin, the leader of the Russia-backed Ukrainian separatist “Donetsk People’s Republic,” warned supporters of Kurdish independence not to rely on support from America or the West because “they won’t respect their promises,” unlike, he claimed, Russia.
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.
Members of Iraq’s persecuted Christian community attempting to return home over three years after the Islamic State’s “caliphate” fell are struggling to resettle, multiple reports highlighted Sunday, as Muslim militias and fraudsters have stolen many of their homes, while others lie in ruin.
A militia believed to be tied to the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) took responsibility on Tuesday for a rocket attack on Erbil, Iraq, that resulted in damage to the Chinese consulate there.
Residents of a Christian village in Northern Iraq’s Kurdistan Region have been forced to abandon the settlement in recent months over Turkey’s ongoing military operations in the area, Kurdish outlets reported on Tuesday.
The appearance of the Wuhan coronavirus in Iran is causing a great deal of anxiety in the region and producing some immediate negative effects as trade across Iran’s borders shuts down. The Kurdistan Region experienced a bout of petrol panic on Monday as rumors of an impending fuel shortage spread, even though the authorities said there has been no significant supply disruption to date.
The abuse of illicit narcotics in Iraqi Kurdistan is “rising year by year,” an official from the region’s security apparatus reportedly declared this week after the local government published figures on substantial seizures of heroin and the arrest of hundreds of drug offenders in recent months.
Turkish warplanes reportedly bombed a mosque in the Duhok province of the Kurdistan Region on Monday, even as Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was in the Kurdish capital of Erbil to discuss security issues and economic relations.
Iraq’s foreign ministry (FM) on Sunday condemned Ankara’s forces for shooting at a crowd of demonstrators in Iraqi Kurdistan who attacked a Turkish military camp in protest of Turkey’s most recent airstrikes on members of a Kurdish terrorist group, a move that violated Iraq’s sovereignty.
The autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq rejected a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report published Tuesday accusing Iraqi Kurds of using “electric shock” and other forms of torture to force child detainees into giving false confessions of involvement with the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday paid an unscheduled visit to Baghdad and the capital of the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region in northern Iraq as part of his Middle East tour of several nations that began in Jordan this week.
Baghdad and Kurdish leaders have ordered the removal of Iran-backed Shiite militias from Kirkuk and the return of the oil-rich city to the control of the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Rudaw reported Thursday.
Residents of a disputed district of Kirkuk, a region claimed by Baghdad and northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), are accusing federal police-backed Arab settlers of confiscating Kurdish lands, Rudaw reported Monday.
The chancellor of northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has reportedly called on U.S. rival China to “play a greater role” in bringing stability to the Middle East.
Hundreds of people from Iraqi Kurdistan took the streets to violently protest the region’s financial problems this week, urging the autonomous government to combat corruption, pay state salaries in full, and restore public services.
U.S. President Donald Trump and his French counterpart, President Emmanuel Macron, have agreed on the need for northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Shiite-led Baghdad to resolve their Kurdish independence efforts-linked differences through dialogue, according to the White House.
Tensions between Kurds and Iranian-backed Shiite militias sanctioned by Baghdad continue to intensify in northern Iraq, prompting young Kurdish men to fight back “the bullies” with RPGs and machine guns in the latest incident in a wave of clashes between the two groups, reports Kurdistan24.
U.S.-designated state-sponsor of terror Iran is helping Shiite-led Baghdad gain control of disputed territory in northern Iraq, according to the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the Kurdistan regional government representative to the United States, spoke with Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Thursday regarding the thousands of Kurds fleeing Kirkuk following the Iraqi Army invasion of the city after an independence referendum.
The borders in Mosul that separate the Iraqi army from troops loyal to northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) will “remain” as they were before the start of the successful U.S.-backed operation to push the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) out of the city, announced the Kurdish Peshmerga Ministry.
Advancing Iraqi troops, backed by Iran-allied Shiite militias, are reportedly coercing “thousands” of residents to abandon the Kurdish-held multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq, a testament to the ongoing altercations triggered by Iraqi Kurdistan’s independence referendum last month.
A Baghdad court has reportedly issued arrest warrants for at least three Kurdish officials from northern Iraq’s autonomous region in an apparent attempt to coerce the Kurds to cancel the outcome of the overwhelming “yes” vote for independence.
The Shiite-led government in Baghdad has warned that Iraq is teetering on the brink of civil war over its autonomous Kurdistan region’s refusal to cancel the outcome of its independence referendum.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has pledged to “soon” close its border crossings and airspace to the autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq to retaliate against Kurds who overwhelmingly voted “yes” to independence last week.
U.S.-supported Iraqi government troops and Iran-allied Shiite militiamen have reportedly retaken the “last” Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) bastion in northern Iraq, marking the latest sign that the jihadist group’s so-called caliphate in the region is dwindling.
The presidents of Turkey and Iran reportedly stressed their strong objections to Iraqi Kurdistan’s efforts to become an independent state during a recent meeting in Tehran.
Shiite-led Arab lawmakers in Baghdad, Iraq, are punishing their Kurdish counterparts for voting in the independence referendum held by the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq last week, banning them from participating in parliament and urging the country’s judicial branch to take punitive measures against them.
Shiite-led Baghdad’s “oppression” prompted the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region to determine its fate in an independence referendum vote last week, argues the mufti of Iraq’s Sunni minority.
Tehran has reportedly deployed dozens of artillery-backed tanks and its powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) to link up with Iran-allied Shiite militias at the Iraqi Kurdistan border in response to the Kurds overwhelmingly voting in favor of independence from Iraq last Monday.
A group of Sunni Arab tribal leaders has voiced support for the non-binding independence referendum passed by northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region this week, denouncing Shiite-led Baghdad’s opposition.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq has reportedly refused to hand over control of its international crossings to Shite-led Baghdad, which has vowed to seize authority over the borders of its autonomous region with the help of neighboring Iran and Turkey.
Representatives from various ethnoreligious minority groups in Iraq – including Christians, Yazidis, and Turkmen – expressed distress towards Kurds voting “yes” to Iraqi Kurdistan’s independence this week, with some saying the referendum was “illegal” and “forced.”
Widely feared risks of “unrest” expressed by the United States and other countries opposed to the independence referendum held by northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) failed to materialize Monday, the day of the vote.
The United Nations, echoing the United States and Iran, has come out against Iraqi Kurdistan’s independence referendum, scheduled to pass this month.
The president of northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, in commemorating the 84th anniversary of the former Iraqi kingdom’s massacre of thousands of Christians in the country, declared that history would not repeat itself in an independent Kurdistan, vowing that the Kurds will protect the “demands and rights” of Assyrian Christians.
The Kurds in northern Iraq have accused the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), a Baghdad-sanctioned umbrella organization largely made up of Iranian-backed Shiite militias, of carrying out an “Arabization” campaign in the disputed Kurdish areas in the region.
