Amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran and reports of a nixed plan to strike Iran following the  downing this week of a U.S. drone, business in neighboring Iraq is reportedly being hampered. Specifically, a $53 billion deal ExxonMobil was pursuing in the country is now indefinitely on hold, Iraqi government officials told Reuters. The project, part of a larger goal to expand work in the country, was geared toward increasing oil output in Iraq’s southern fields.  However, tensions with Iran — along with…

BAGHDAD—A rocket hit a compound in southern Iraq used by Exxon Mobil Corp. and other international oil firms, heightening fears among Iraqi officials that tensions between the U.S. and Iran would spill into their country. The rocket landed at the Burjesia site near the city of Basra early Wednesday, injuring three Iraqi staff, according to Forat Salih, the head of media at Basra Oil Co. They were taken to the hospital to be treated for light injuries. It is the fourth time in…

Iraqi activist Hanaa Edwar will soon be discharged from hospital after a traffic accident in Baghdad that raised fears the veteran campaigner for justice and democracy had been targeted by her opponents. “She is due to leave the hospital after having undergone an operation for a fracture in her leg in Sheikh Zayed Hospital in Baghdad,” Suhaila Al Asam, a women’s rights who was with Ms Edwar in hospital, told The National on Sunday. Ms Edwar was hit by a car after…

US Treasury says company has 'trafficked hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of weapons to Iraqi militias The United States has sanctioned an Iraqi company it says has ties to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) and allegedly helped smuggle weapons to Iraq-based militias. The US Treasury Department sanctioned the South Wealth Resources Company (SWRC) and two of the company's associates on Wednesday. The SWRC has ties to the IRGC's Quds Force, the department said in a statement, and "has trafficked hundreds…

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas arrived in Iraq on Saturday as part of a wider trip to the Middle East seeking to de-escalate tensions between Iran and the United States. In a statement, Maas’s office said European nations must engage with the region at a time of heightened concern following recent U.S. naval movements in the Persian Gulf. “We cannot just call for dialogue; we must conduct it — particularly where differences appear unbridgeable and long-standing conflicts run deep. The danger that miscalculations, misunderstandings and provocations…

The Office of the Inspector-General of the Ministry of the Interior, on Tuesday announced the arrest of an Iranian drug dealer that has been smuggling the drug "Alristal" into Baghdad. The office said in a statement issued on Tuesday that "the Detective Unit of the Interior Ministry's inspector general was able to arrest one of the Iranian drug traffickers with the entry and smuggling of more than half a kilogram of Alristal material to Baghdad." He added that "the operation…

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi court sentenced two Frenchmen to death on Monday for membership of Islamic State, a prosecutor told Reuters, bringing the total number of French citizens on death row in Iraq to 11. The sentences can be appealed. President Emmanuel Macron’s government has said France opposes the death penalty but respects Iraqi sovereignty. Iraq is conducting trials of thousands of suspected Islamic State fighters, including hundreds of foreigners, many of whom were arrested as the group’s strongholds…

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Senior Kurdish leaders strongly condemned Thursday’s deadly series of bombings that killed and injured dozens of civilians in the disputed province of Kirkuk, urging for the area’s security to be jointly administered with Erbil to combat the threat of terrorism. On Thursday night, six explosions rocked Kirkuk. It was first reported that at least five people were killed and around 20 more injured, but on Friday, Iraq’s Ministry of Health announced that the bombings had killed…

The Supreme Judicial Council and Federal Court in Iraq denied that arrangements have been made to dismiss judicial cases against prominent Sunni politicians.Local media had reported that figures, such as former Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, former Finance Minister Rafeh Issawi, former Nineveh province Governor Atheel al-Nujaifi and Anbar province elder Sheikh Ali al-Hatem al-Suleiman, have had their judicial cases dismissed as part of a political settlement.Official spokesman for the Supreme Judicial Council Abdulsattar al-Bayrkdar denied the report, saying that any…

Followers of Iraqi cleric hold anti-war protests as Iran-US tensions growERBIL (Kurdistan 24) ­– Followers of influential Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Friday launched a series of anti-war demonstrations in the capital of Baghdad and other cities to the south as tensions escalated between the US and Iraq’s eastern neighbor, Iran. Crowds chanted, “Yes to peace… No to war!” in central Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, a popular site of Friday demonstrations. Local sources told Kurdistan 24 that security forces were…