Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has insisted that the general elections will go ahead as planned, calling it a “constitutional commitment” that should be fulfilled. Abadi, speaking on the upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for May, “regardless of the results, our goal is to form a professional team” away from the quota system, which defines the ethnic representation in the Iraqi governance system. In an exclusive interview with Al Arabiya’s General Manager Turki al-Dakhil, the prime minister said the political process…

AMRIYAT AL-FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi security forces are forcibly returning civilians from refugee camps to unsafe areas in the predominantly Sunni Anbar province, exposing them to death from booby-traps or acts of vigilantism, refugees and aid workers say. Managing more than two million Iraqis displaced by the war against Islamic State is one of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s most daunting tasks. But critics say he is more interested in winning elections in May than alleviating the suffering of displaced…

WASHINGTON DC, United States (Kurdistan 24) – The US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, criticized Iran’s role in Iraq in an emergency Security Council meeting on Friday which the US called for in response to the popular protests in Iran and the regime’s heavy-handed suppression of them.  Haley affirmed that “freedom and human dignity cannot be separated from peace and security,” and she hailed the protests of the “brave people,” who have become so angry at “their oppressive government…

The United Nations rights office has urged Iraq to immediately halt all executions, stressing that putting to death 38 terrorist suspects was “deeply shocking.”"We are deeply shocked and appalled at the mass execution” at a prison in the southern city of Nasiriyah on Thursday, United Nations human rights office spokeswoman Liz Throssell told reporters in Geneva.“It appears extremely doubtful that strict due process and fair trial guarantees were followed in these 38 cases," Agence France Presse quoted Throssell as saying…

An international conference titled “Mullahs’ regime in crises, explosive situation in Iran, meddling in other countries” was held in Paris, where several dignitaries from the US, France, Canada, EU and the Middle East addressed the Iranian situation. Among the speakers was General James Conway who was the Commanding General of the US Marine Corps from 2006 to 2010. He was commander of 90,000 US and British forces in Iraq and served two tours in Iraq. During his time there, some of the…

A powerful Iran-backed Iraqi militant commander has visited the Lebanon-Israel border expressing support for the Lebanese and Palestinians against the Jewish state and sparking harsh criticism from Lebanon's prime minister who ordered him banned from entering the country. Qais al-Khazali is commander of the Iranian-backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq, or League of the Righteous, a group that staged spectacular attacks against U.S. troops before their withdrawal from Iraq in 2011. He appeared in military uniform in a video while touring the…

CIA Director Mike Pompeo said Saturday that he sent a letter to a top Iranian military official warning him that the United States would hold Tehran accountable for any attacks it conducted on American interests in Iraq. Pompeo, who has voiced staunch opposition to Iran, said he sent the letter to Gen. Qassem Soleimani, a leader of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and elite Quds Force, but the general didn't read it. "I sent a note. I sent it because…

French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday called for a rapid opening of dialogue between Iraq's central government and Iraqi Kurdish leaders and for "all militias" to be dismantled to ease tensions. "France calls for a constructive national dialogue to engage in Iraq," Macron said at a joint news conference in Paris with Iraqi Kurdish leaders, including Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani.   Baghdad and the Kurdish regional capital Arbil have been locked in dispute ever since September's independence referendum, which resulted…

Thousands more American troops are serving in Iraq and Syria than has been previously acknowledged by the Pentagon, a new report found. According to the Defense Manpower Data Center's quarterly report from September, there were 1,720 American troops in Syria -- three times as many as the 503 troops in Syria that U.S. military spokesmen have told reporters. The Pentagon's personnel agency issues quarterly reports about how many American troops are serving in individual states and overseas countries. The same report showed there were…

A top United Nations official Thursday called on the Iraqi government to speed up investigations into allegations of human rights violations committed by security forces during the fight against the Islamic State group and to make the results of those probes public. Since 2014, the U.S.-backed Iraqi forces' fight against the Sunni militant group has been mired in violations committed by government forces and paramilitaries that international human rights groups have decried as war crimes, ranging from extrajudicial killings of IS suspects to forced displacement and…