Iraq - AL-MONITOR: The Middle Eastʼs leading independent news source since 2012

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Iraq

June 28, 2026

Baghdad 1:21 pm

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A worker at a market for fuel oil and automotive fuel on March 17, 2026, in Erbil, Iraq.

Explainer

After UAE and Qatar, could Iraq be next to leave OPEC?

Iraq is seeking a higher production quota as the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has slashed oil revenues and plunged the country into a fiscal crisis.

Krikor Der-Hagopian at the 9th Sulaimani Forum, in Sulaimaniyah, Iraq, on April 16, 2025.

Iraq taps Krikor Der-Hagopian as first Armenian Christian ambassador to US

Baghdad’s pick of a US-educated Armenian Christian adviser as envoy to Washington underscores a bid to reset US-Iraq ties and broaden the country’s diplomatic profile.

Tom Barrack

Exclusive

Barrack heads to Iraq as US presses Baghdad on Iran-backed militias

US envoy Tom Barrack is due to meet with Iraq’s new prime minister and other top officials in Baghdad, where he will likely press US demands for Iran-backed Shiite militias be dismantled and disarmed.

Amberin Zaman

By Amberin Zaman

Reporting on geopolitics, minorities, human rights, culture

Latest News

Culture

World Cup opens amid visa disputes for Iran, Iraq and Somalia

Members of the Iranian national soccer team including midfielder Alireza Jahanbakhsh (R) arrive at Tijuana International Airport on June 7, 2026, in Tijuana, Mexico.

Syria says Iraqi oil shipments surge as Damascus courts foreign energy investment

A long convoys of Iraqi diesel-laden tanker trucks line up along the highway Tartus-Baniyas highway as they wait to unload their cargo at the Baniyas port refinery on the Mediterranean Sea, on April 15, 2026.

Israel-Iran escalation grounds flights across parts of Middle East

An Airbus A321 airliner arrives at the Mehrabad international airport during the delivery of the first batch of planes to the Iranian state airline Iran Air in the capital Tehran on Jaunary 12, 2017. - The aircraft arrived as part of an order for 100 other Airbus planes with a list price of around $20 billion (19 billion euros) on December 22, placed after the lifting of international sanctions on the Islamic republic. It will be used for internal flights landed at Tehran's Mehrabad airport. (Photo by ATTA

Amberin Zaman

Chief Correspondent

Reporting on geopolitics, minorities, human rights, culture

Jared Szuba

Defense and Security Correspondent

In Washington, DC, reporting on defense, national security, military

Beatrice Farhat

Associate Editor (Lebanon)

In Beirut, reporting on regional news, culture, conflict

Suadad al-Salhy

In Baghdad, reporting on politics and security

Lyse Mauvais

In Amman, reporting on humanitarian crises

Winthrop Rodgers

In Sulaymaniyah, reporting on Kurdish issues

Iran strikes Kurdish Iranian group in Iraqi territory

Iran sometimes targets the positions of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan and other Kurdish Iranian groups based across the border in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

Iraqi prime minister presses ahead with promise of early elections

Iraq’s Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi has committed to early elections, but Iraq's political blocs may resist.

Iraq’s prime minister says early elections to be held in June 2021

Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi said parliamentary elections will be held June 6, 2021.

Iraq’s government says families of nearly 560 killed in protests to be compensated

The Interior Ministry also announced the arrest of three members of the Iraqi security forces it said were responsible for two protester deaths overnight Sunday.

An Iraqi policeman, wearing a protective mask and gloves due to the COVID-19 pandemic, stands by a water sprinkler on a hot summer day in Baghdad on July 7, 2020. (Photo by SABAH ARAR / AFP) (Photo by SABAH ARAR/AFP via Getty Images)

Iraqis face record-breaking heat, electricity cuts

Protests against the government and frequent power outages are continuing amid Iraq's highest temperatures on record.

Former Iraqi insurgents, members of the Sunni Anbar Awakening, guard a meeting between Sunni and Shiite tribe leaders and clerics in al-Duwanem, southwest of Baghdad, 25 September 2007. The aim of the meeting is to bring back life to the town after it was cleared from al-Qaeda. The formation of the Sahwat al-Anbar, or Anbar Awakening, the grouping of Anbari tribes and former insurgents opposed to Al-Qaeda, traces back to last year, when Al-Qaeda in Iraq conducted its campaign of murder and intimidation thro

Iraqi lawmaker calls for arming tribes amid attacks on Sunni communities

As several Islamic State attacks in Sunni provinces took out local commanders and a community leader in July, a lawmaker from Salahhuddin province has called for the arming of tribes in his region.

Yazidi activist Nadia Murad to appear on 'The Daily Show'

Murad's appearance on the popular US talk and news satire show could showcase her efforts to combat sexual violence and trafficking to a new and big audience.

<<enter caption here>> on April 13, 2015 in Baghdad, Iraq.

Assassinations, kidnappings shake Baghdad

Journalists and activists fear being targeted as another wave of protests and violence occur in Iraq.

Iraqi army aircraft damaged in rocket attack on Camp Taji

The attack is the latest in a long-running series of low-level attacks believed to be carried out by Iran-sponsored militias in Iraq.

Iraqi PM calls for investigation after two protesters killed in Baghdad

The prime minister said security forces have 72 hours to finish their investigation into the protester deaths.

Iraqi security forces stand guard at a checkpoint enforcing a curfew due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic during the Eid al-Fitr holiday which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, in Baghdad on May 26, 2020. (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP) (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP via Getty Images)

Iraq issues 'total curfew' for Eid al-Adha

COVID-19 cases have increased to historic highs of around 2,000 a day in Iraq.

The Iraqi parliament votes on the new Iraqi government, headed by Adel Abdul Mahdi, October 24, 2018 in Baghdad. - The Iraqi parliament on Thursday approved 14 new cabinet ministers proposed by prime minister-designate Adel Abdel Mahdi, even as key portfolios such as defence and interior affairs remain unassigned, an official said. A total of 220 lawmakers out of 329 elected in May to a deeply divided parliamant, approved Mahdi's 14 picks, including for the ministries of foreign affairs, finances, and petro

Iraqi government not giving up on early elections

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi is seeking to manage disparate political blocs to allow early electons.