By Simon Kent. Iraq's Central Bank have increased the price of dollars sold to currency exchange companies and banks in a bid to boost government revenues. The price of a dollar is now up 16 Dinars, or 1.37%, meaning the sale price is now 1,182 Dinars per dollar, where it was previously 1,166 dinars for a […]
By Simon Kent. Turkish President Reccip Tayyip Erdogan has announced that further withdrawals of Turkish troops are being made from Iraqi Kurdish territory following pressure from Baghdad and Washington. Baghdad had previously called the deployment of Turkish soldiers to a KDP Peshmerga base "an illegal incursion" and Barack Obama called Erdogan asking him to de-escalate tensions. […]
By Simon Kent. Iraq's oil minister Adel Abdul Mahdi (pictured) has spoken to Reuters regarding Iraq's position on OPEC's failure to agree on a production ceiling as the battle to drive out shale production continues. Abdul Mahdi said that Iraq was now looking at the "real world" and that they would have to monitor production in countries […]
By Simon Kent. APR Energy plc has announced that it has signed for an extension of its power generation contract in Iraq. The company run a gas fired power station that provides electricity for Iraq's southern port city of Basra. According to APR, the power plant has been in operation since 2012 and comprises six […]
By Simon Kent. An official with the Iraqi North Oil Company has been shot dead in Kirkuk, northern Iraq, Reuters reports. The murder of Hassan Salim is the third assassination of an oil official from the NOC in just four months, in an area which has been disputed by Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen since the fall of the […]
By Simon Kent. Turkish forces at the centre of a row that has ignited passions over Iraqi sovereignty, have moved from their base in the Iraqi Kurdish area of Bashika. However, the soldiers are apparently not being withdrawn from Iraqi territory but are being re-located, according to a statement from the Turkish Ministry of Defence. […]
By Simon Kent. Aircraft from the US led Coalition in Iraq have attacked 15 targets in Iraq in the past 24 hrs, according to an official statement from the "Combined Joint Task Force," better known as the US led Coalition. As per recent waves of strikes, the latest attacks were centred on Ramadi, where an […]
By Simon Kent. Last Summer, the Jordanian government closed the Trebil border crossing with Iraq as fighters from the so called "Islamic State," also known as Daesh, took control of huge areas of Anbar in Iraq. Jordan's Ministry of Transport subsequently forbade truckers to transit into Iraq, causing over 300 million Jordanian Dinars worth of […]
By Simon Kent. The US air force has eliminated Abu Saleh, the financial coordinator of ISIS (also known as Daesh) in an air strike at the end of November. US military spokesman Col. Steve Warren announced the strike, noting that Abu Saleh was "a legacy al Qaeda member." The strike was one of a series […]
By Simon Kent. Iraq's Foreign Ministry have approached the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, seeking an official condemnation of the deployment of Turkish troops to Northern Iraq. Although the troop training arrangement is between the Iraqi Kurdish Democratic Party and the Turks, Baghdad views the move as a violation of sovereignty. Turkey […]
By Simon Kent. Two twins have been detained in Finland on suspicion of involvement in the so called "Speicher massacre" which occurred near Tikrit last June. Finnish security services had apparently been anticipating the arrival of the men in the country, whose faces appear un-masked in a video by the so called "Islamic State," also […]
By Simon Kent. Iraqi forces in Anbar province's capital city of Ramadi are close to victory, several publications report. According to The Wall St. Journal, Iraqi sources on the ground say that US air strikes were critical in the latest advances and most of the city's districts are now once again under government control. At this point, […]
