Iraq

BAGHDAD, Dec 28 (NNN-XINHUA) — The Iraqi security forces have confiscated 80 kg of narcotics and dismantled an international drug trafficking network in the southern province of Dhi Qar, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Upon intelligence reports, the Iraqi anti-narcotics forces arrested two suspects and seized 80 kg of Captagon pills in the province, the statement said.

BAGHDAD, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Iraq's government on Tuesday condemned overnight U.S. air strikes on Iraqi military positions that it said killed one serviceman and wounded 18 people, calling them a "clear hostile act".

The United States carried out retaliatory air strikes on Monday in Iraq after a one-way drone attack earlier in the day by Iran-aligned militants that left one U.S. service member in critical condition and wounded two others.

BAGHDAD, Dec. 25 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi government on Monday condemned an attack by a bomb-laden drone on an airbase housing the U.S.-led coalition forces near Erbil Airport in Iraq's northern semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region.

Yahya Rasoul, the military spokesman of the Iraqi prime minister, said in a statement that the attack occurred near the civil Erbil Airport, injuring several people and affecting the operation of the airport.

Calling the attack a "terrorist act," Rasoul added "such criminal acts aim to harm Iraq's interests," according to the statement.

BAGHDAD, Dec 9 (NNN-NINA) – Fourteen people were killed and 18 others injured, last night, in a fire that broke out at a residential building, in the town of Soran, in Erbil province, in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

A statement by the Soran health department said, “The fire first broke out on the third and fourth floors, which were inhabited by university students and teachers, and then spread to the entire five-storey building.”

BAGHDAD, Dec. 8 (Xinhua) -- Explosions were heard early on Friday near the U.S. embassy in central Baghdad's Green Zone with alarm sirens sounding inside the building, local media reported.

It was unclear whether there was any damage, it added.

14 November 2023; MEMO: An Iraqi television channel yesterday broadcast a video of Israeli-Russian doctoral student Elizabeth Tsurkov, the first ever since her kidnapping nine months ago in Baghdad, in an incident that the Israeli authorities blamed on pro-Iran Shia militias.

Tsurkov is likely to have entered Iraq on a Russian passport before being kidnapped in the capital at the end of March.

BAGHDAD, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- An Iraqi Shiite militia claimed on Tuesday responsibility for a drone attack on a U.S. military base in eastern Syria.

An armed group named "Islamic Resistance in Iraq" claimed in an online statement that its fighters had launched a booby-trapped drone toward the al-Omar oil field in the eastern countryside of Syria's Deir al-Zour province. It said the drone had hit its target.

12 November 2023; MEMO: China’s state-owned oil and gas company, PetroChina is to replace US energy giant Exxon Mobil Corp as the lead contractor for Iraq’s West Qurna 1 oilfield, following a settlement agreement, whereby the latter will finalise its exit from the oilfield, according to a senior Iraqi oil executive.

31 October 2023; MEMO: Iraqi Prime Minister, Mohammed Shayya’ Al-Sudani, warned yesterday that the region is going through a dangerous turning point that threatens the escalation and expansion of the war on Gaza.

28 October 2023; MEMO: The leader of the Sadr Movement in Iraq, Muqtada Al-Sadr, on Friday called on the Iraqi federal government and Parliament to vote on a decision to close the US Embassy in Iraq in “support” of the Palestinians.