The terrorist group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (or ISIS) no longer makes headlines like the wars in Eastern Europe and the Middle East do. Ten years ago, however, it was a different story. Then, amid the chaos that reigned after the...
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Iraq has regained a semblance of stability since the defeat of the Islamic State, the departure of most foreign troops, and the growth of Iranian influence in the capital of Baghdad in recent years. To counter that influence, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab...
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A United Nations mission set up to aid Iraq in probing alleged crimes by Islamic State (IS, also known as Daesh) militants will end its operations prematurely later this year following disagreements with the Iraqi government, an exit that has raised questions about the prosecution...
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Iran’s security forces launched a series of missile strikes at the alleged headquarters for Israeli spies in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, an attack that raised fears of a widening conflict across the Middle East amid Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the...
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Iraqis cast their ballots in the country’s provincial elections this week, the first such vote in a decade and one that many believe will set the stage for the next parliamentary polls in 2025, the Associated Press reported. The vote will select new provincial council members,...
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Iraq ordered all news organizations and social media platforms to stop using the term “homosexuality” and instead use “sexual deviancy,” a move that prompted concern among human rights groups over the treatment of LGBTQ individuals in the Middle Eastern country, CBS News reported Thursday. The country’s...
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Iraq cut diplomatic ties with Sweden on Thursday as hundreds of Iraqi protesters stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad, the latest show of anger over another planned burning of the Quran in Stockholm, the Financial Times reported. Video footage on social media showed Iraqi protesters attempting...
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Twenty years after the American invasion of Iraq, the booksellers of Mutanabbi Street are back again, reviving the popular Arabic saying, “Cairo writes, Beirut publishes, and Baghdad reads.” Fighting in the streets kept the customers away from this otherwise well-frequented strip of booksellers during the...
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Iraqi Christian lawmakers are attempting to overturn a law banning the import and sale of alcohol, which they say violates the rights of non-Muslim minorities in the predominately Muslim country, the BBC reported. In 2016, Iraq passed a law that would ban the import, sale and...
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Hundreds of Iraqis protested in the capital Baghdad on Monday to oppose an election bill that critics say would undermine independent candidates, the Associated Press reported. The current law, which applied to the 2021 election, divides each of the country’s 18 provinces into multiple electoral districts. That...
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Iraqi lawmakers elected Abdul Latif Rashid, a Kurdish politician and former minister for water, as the country’s new president, the first step to ending a long-running political deadlock that has left Iraq without a government since last year’s elections, the New York Times reported. Rashid’s election...
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Influential Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr urged his supporters to immediately withdraw from the capital’s government district, following a day of violent unrest that killed more than 30 people, the Washington Post reported Tuesday. Al-Sadr’s supporters stormed the presidential palace in Baghdad’s “Green Zone” on Monday after...
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From 2003 to 2009, the Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr waged an insurgency against American troops who had invaded his Middle Eastern country in 2003. Today, the soldiers are mostly gone. But al-Sadr is still arguably the most powerful force in Iraqi politics. After almost a year...
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Thousands of protesters occupied Iraq’s parliament this week in protest against corruption and the nomination of a prime minister candidate supported by the country’s Iranian-backed parties, the Wall Street Journal reported. Supporters of the fiery cleric Muqtada al-Sadr stormed the capital’s “Green Zone” – the fortified...
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Turkey denied reports that it carried out attacks against civilians in Iraq’s northern Duhok province, where a strike killed eight people, including two children, and wounded 23 others at a tourist resort, Al Jazeera reported Thursday. On Wednesday, at least four missiles struck an area in...
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An Iraqi court sentenced a British man to 15 years in prison this week after finding him guilty of attempting to smuggle ancient artifacts from a country known as the cradle of civilization, CNN reported. The judge said that former geologist Jim Fitton had attempted to...
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