Iraq

In the early hours of 3 January 2020, missiles fired from US drones killed ten people near Baghdad airport. Drone strikes by the US are almost commonplace these days, but what made this particular strike noteworthy was its target: General Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iran's Quds Force, a unit of

Out of print In the latest casualty of Lebanon’s ongoing political crisis, the country’s only national English-language newspaper, The Daily Star, has temporarily ceased publishing its print edition. In an announcement, the editors cited financial challenges and a drop in advertising revenue

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has been a consistently powerful and decisive force in Iraq’s ongoing political transition. His role in Iraq has been closely observed over the years by those seeking to understand Iraq and to divine its future political fortunes. Representing the “quietist”

Since the start of October, large-scale protests have rocked Iraq, killing more than a hundred people and wounding thousands. Iraqis are frustrated with high unemployment, the dismal state of Iraq’s essential infrastructure, and the long-standing corruption seen as the fundamental cause for the

As the Iraqi Army and Shiite militias drive Kurdish forces out of cities and villages in the wake of the Kurdish Regional Government's independence referendum, the plight of the ever-persecuted Yazidis remains as dire – and as invisible – as ever. Caught between two governments vying for land

Hopes were high in Kurdistan after the historic, if ill-advised, referendum on independence earlier this month. To the question 'Do you want the Kurdistan Region and the Kurdistani areas outside the region's administration to become an independent state?', 92% of respondents voted 'yes'.

Tensions between the Iraqi military and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters are once again threatening to boil over. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has ordered the military to 'impose security' in and around the oilfields and airport in the province of Kirkuk, a region the Kurds took back from Islamic

It is hard not to be sympathetic to the decades-long Kurdish struggle for independence and self-determination. The long-suffering Kurdish nation was summarily divvied up by the Sykes-Picot Agreement (a document that continues to vex the Middle East to this day) and the Treaty of Lausanne after World

Iraqi Shia Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's reconciliation tour of Sunni-run Gulf states continued this week, following up his visit to Riyadh to see Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with a visit to the UAE. There he was met by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayad. There is little doubt