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As Iraqi security forces make progress in the campaign to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Canada’s vow this week to expand its contributions in the fight is a welcomed commitment, Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren said on Wednesday.

Warren noted in his weekly counter-ISIL operational update via videoconference from Baghdad that the Canadian government announced on Feb. 8th that it plans to triple the size of its train, advise and assist mission. A move that is welcomed, the colonel added.

“Canada will increase its compliment of military personnel to approximately 830,” he said. “They will deploy troops at various headquarters to further support planning, targeting and intelligence. As part of these efforts, Canada will deploy medical personnel to train Iraqi medics and to provide medical support to coalition members.”

Warren added, “Canada will also provide equipment such as small arms, ammunition and optics to assist in the training of Iraqi security forces.”

The Canadians “have been a trusted and valuable partner of this coalition since the beginning of the campaign, whether it's providing aerial refueling and surveillance aircraft or trainers to advise and assist, they've shown great resolve and continue to enable this fight,” the colonel said.

Gains Continue, Despite Threats

As clearance operations continue in Iraqi-controlled Ramadi, “untold thousands of [improvised explosive devices]” remain in the city, Warren said, and threats persist from enemy harassing attacks and acts of terror.

By Amberin Zaman for Al-Monitor. Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

When the Iraqi Kurds come to Washington, it is often to ask for guns to fight the Islamic State (IS). Now they are pleading for cash, warning that their campaign against the jihadis is threatened by an economic “tsunami” that has left their quasi-independent state teetering on the brink of collapse.

“Is this only our fight or yours, too?” asked Fuad Hussein, chief of staff of Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani, after briefing top US officials in Washington last week.

The Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga warriors and the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units are critical allies in the fight against IS, wresting back huge chunks of territories including the town of Sinjar in Iraq and the Tishreen dam in Syria. But Hussein cautioned that IS remains “a big threat” and could “regroup at any time.” Unless the Kurds’ allies step in with financial aid, the Kurds' capacity to fend off the jihadists will wane, he said. “You cannot win the fight when you can’t survive economically,” Hussein told Al-Monitor in an interview.

That message was driven home in back-to-back meetings at the State Department, the White House, the National Security Council and also on Capitol Hill, where the Kurds met with Sens. John McCain and Dianne Feinstein, among others. “We haven’t been going around asking people to pull out their checkbooks,” said Bayan Sami Rahman, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) representative in Washington.

“But people don’t appreciate enough that this is an incessant fight,” she said in an interview with Al-Monitor. “Never mind the cost of running a war, our peshmerga don’t even have winter gear. The purpose of our mission here is to help our friends understand that this is not sustainable, that we need nothing less than a Marshall plan,” Rahman added.

By John Lee.

Iraq's Etihad Food Industries will reportedly start production at its new $100-million edible oils refinery in Babylon by the end of the year.

Commercial Director Haidar Alnoumany told Reuters that the company started building the infrastructure two months ago, and when in production it will source crude (edible) oil from many origins like Argentina, Ukraine, Russia and the United States.

The refinery will process corn oil, sunflower oil, soybean oil, and palm oil, and aims to cover the needs of Iraq's trade ministry (around 456,000 tonnes a year) and the domestic private market.

It will have a capacity of 3,000 tonnes a day with a refined oil storage capacity of 90,000 tonnes.

The plant is close to the company's sugar refining plant, which started production last year and ramped up faster than expected, reducing the country's dependence on white sugar imports.

(Source: Reuters)

(Cooking oil image via Shutterstock)

This article was originally published by Niqash. Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

Between Black Gold, Bleak Prospects: Visiting The Iraqi Shanty Town Between Two Oil Fields

NIQASH visits Wasit's Oil Town. But this is no wealthy area for oil billionaires. This shanty town between two oil fields is full of displaced people in shacks, with no sanitation or easily accessible drinking water.

It's a random neighbourhood, with barely any of the necessities one would normally find in a housing district. But somehow the Hay al-Naft neighbourhood, also known as “Oil Town”, located between the Ahdab oil field, run by the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), and Russia's Gazprom-run field at Badra, has become a gathering place for those with nowhere else to go.

More than 50,000 residents live here and most of them were displaced by the previous or present sectarian conflict. Locals say the shanty town was named Oil Town either because of its proximity to oil fields or, some suggest, because it is thought there may be oil underneath the town.

A woman living there who wished to be known only as Um Ali, said she had come here in 2006 after she was forced out of her own neighbourhood by sectarian conflicts.

“We see oil around us in all directions,” the woman in her 60s, her face dark and creased, told NIQASH. “But we don't benefit from any of the oil. We only inhale the smoke and fumes and fear the diseases they bring. I am really afraid for the future of my four sons here. I wish we could go elsewhere where we could live in dignity.”

The houses here, roofed with wooden panels that don't hold out the rain or wind, are separated by streets full of sewage, dirty water and rubbish. It's a kind of a shanty town where every dwelling was built randomly and without any planning, another resident who wished to remain anonymous, told NIQASH.

This article was originally published by Niqash. Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

A Pipeline In The Pipeline: Can Exporting Natural Gas Save Iraqi Kurdistan?

Beginning 2016 Iraqi Kurdistan will begin to build a new natural gas pipeline to Turkey. But analysts say if they use the same policies they do for oil, the pipeline will make things worse, not better.

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