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Iraq

August 25, 2026

Baghdad 12:10 am

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Oil falls 1.8% as traders await 'toughest' sanctions on Iran

Traders are awaiting details about new US measures sure to further disrupt Iranian oil flows.

Zaidi

Iraq’s Zaidi doubles down on militia disarmament, boosting oil exports

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi made the comments amid Hormuz-related export struggles and a nearing deadline for armed groups to disarm.

Masrour Barzani, Prime Minister of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government, gives a press conference in the autonomous region's capital Arbil on June 25, 2025.

Interview

Barzani calls for enhanced air defense for Kurdistan Region to counter drone attacks

Iraqi Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani backs US-led regional economic integration efforts and lauds US partnership in an exclusive interview with Al-Monitor.

Masrour Barzani

Masrour Barzani

KRG Prime Minister

Latest News

Exclusive

Saudi Arabia wants Iran-backed militia 'heads to roll' in Iraq amid talks with Tehran

AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP via Getty Images

Amberin Zaman

By Amberin Zaman

Reporting on geopolitics, minorities, human rights, culture

Explainer

Iraq seeks special Hormuz access from Iran in scramble to keep oil flowing

AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP via Getty Images

Iran’s Ghalibaf makes high-level visit to Iraq ahead of disarmament deadline

Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf speaks during a press conference at the site where Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was killed by a US airstrike in 2020 near the airport upon his arrival in Baghdad, on Aug. 19, 2026.

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

U.S. and Jordanian soldiers participate in Exercise Eager Lion at the Jordan-Saudi Arabia border, south of Amman May 18, 2015. Around 10,000 participants from 18 countries will take part in Eager Lion. REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed - RTX1DI9O

Defense spending bill provides boost to Jordan

House Defense appropriators released a FY 2016 bill that seeks to help Jordan fight the Islamic State.

Iraqi Shi'ite youths use computers at an internet cafe in Sadr City in Baghdad May 3, 2014. Iraq is now gripped by its worst violence since the heights of its 2005-2008 sectarian war, and Sunni Islamist insurgents who target Shi'ites have been regaining ground in the country over the past year. But despite the instability, daily life continues in poor Shi'ite neighbourhoods of Baghdad such as Al-Fdhiliya and Sadr City - a sprawling slum marred by poor infrastructure and overcrowding. Picture taken May 3, 20

Iraqis use social media to pressure government

Iraqis are making sure social networking sites can be used to mobilize the public and express opinions against political events and decisions.

Students attend class in the Nafit 1, a modern school built with the aid of a grant from Kuwait, in Basra, southeast of Baghdad November 2, 2014. A country that used to have one of the finest education systems in the Middle East is struggling to provide school students with the basic opportunity to learn. In the southern port city of Basra, many school buildings are in a dilapidated state. Large numbers of children are attending schools that lack even basic water or sanitation facilities, have crumbling wal

Iraq tries to improve human rights through education

Although the Ministry of Education and the Commission on Human Rights in Qadisiyah province are working to introduce human rights principles in schools, the project lacks much-needed support from the state.

A man walks inside the shrine containing the tomb of Jewish prophet Ezekiel in the Iraqi town of Kifl, south of Baghdad, March 25, 2015. Picture taken March 25, 2015. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani - RTR4UYHY

Babil’s Jewish shrine, mosque share space

The tomb of the Prophet Ezekiel, located next to a mosque in Kifl, Babil, is a site of both controversy and religious coexistence.

A general view shows a besieged hospital, the last remaining Syrian army foothold in the town of Jisr al-Shughour, in the province of Idlib May 3, 2015. Syrian troops backed by heavy air strikes have edged closer to a hospital in northwestern Syria where dozens of Syrian soldiers and loyalist fighters have been holed up for the past two weeks, the army said on Sunday. The town was overrun last month by insurgents, including al Qaeda's wing in Syria, Nusra Front. Picture taken May 3, 2015. REUTERS/Ammar Abd

Iran’s new strategy in Syria

Iran and its allies, such as Hezbollah, seem to be getting more involved in the Syrian civil war.

People walk past a banner (in black and white) belonging to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the city of Mosul, June 28, 2014. Since early June, ISIL militants have overrun most majority Sunni Muslim areas in the north and west of Iraq, capturing the biggest northern city Mosul and late dictator Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. The banner reads, "There is no God but God, and Mohammad is his messenger." REUTERS/Stringer (IRAQ - Tags: CIVIL UNREST POLITICS) - RTR3W71S

Services improve under IS in Mosul

Some say there is a silver lining to the Islamic State’s takeover of Mosul in Iraq, namely an improvement in services, in an apparent attempt by the group to gain legitimacy and garner the support of Mosul residents.

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 3: Chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX) listens to Defense Undersecretary for Policy Christine Wormuth and Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, commander of the U.S. Central Command testify during the House Armed Services Full Committee hearing on "The President's Proposed Authorization for Use of Military Force Against ISIL and U.S. Policy, Strategy, and Posture in the Greater Middle East" in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on March 3, 2015 in Washington, D.C. President Obama i

Congress decides Iraqi Kurds, Sunnis aren't countries after all

The annual defense bill gets a new look after backlash from Baghdad.

Iraqi Parliament Speaker Salim al-Jabouri attends a conference at the Foreign Ministry in Baghdad March 31, 2015. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad - RTR4VMP5

Iraq’s toxic partisanship continues

Iraq is still hashing out its long overdue parties law, which will need ratification by the very parties it's intended to rein in.

Peshmerga fighters stand guard at Mosul Dam in northern Iraq August 21, 2014. Despite its structural faults, the country's biggest dam at 3.6 km long, built by a German-Italian consortium in the 1980s, is a vital water and power source for Mosul, Iraq's largest northern city of 1.7 million residents. Control the dam and you control the 'keys' to the city. With that in mind, Islamic State insurgents who captured swathes of Iraq and Syria and declared a caliphate, wrested control of the dam from Kurdish force

How IS uses water as weapon of war

The Islamic State's expanding control over the water resources of the Middle East will only compound the region's water crisis.

Hashid Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) forces allied with Iraqi forces chant slogans against the Islamic State in Tikrit March 30, 2015. Iraqi security forces continued their offensive against Islamic State militants on the outskirts of Tikrit on Monday, in an operation slowed by bombs and booby traps. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani - RTR4VI58

Comparing Iraq's Shiite forces to Iran's Basij

While the circumstances of Iran's Basij and Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units share similarities, there were differences in the domestic politics of the countries during the formation of these groups.

Kurdish Peshmerga female fighters practise the procedure of dealing with prisoners during combat skills training before being deployed to fight Islamic State militants, at their military camp in Sulaimaniya, northern Iraq September 18, 2014. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah (IRAQ - Tags: CIVIL UNREST CONFLICT MILITARY TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY) - RTR46QER

Concerns rise over execution of IS militants

Captured members of the Islamic State in Iraq are being executed, increasing the possibility of mass killings of civilians and destroying Iraq's future as a unitary state.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Martin Dempsey (not pictured) speak to reporters at the Pentagon in Washington April 16, 2015. REUTERS/James Lawler Duggan - RTR4XNHW

Carter: Syria 'safe zones' would be 'major combat mission'

US secretary of defense tells Congress no-fly zone would be "difficult thing to contemplate"; state institutions collapse as result of war in Yemen; Obama administration rejects direct arms to Iraqi Kurdistan.