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Iraq

August 25, 2026

Baghdad 3:03 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

A resident walks at the entrance of a cinema in Baghdad April 26, 2011. Iraq once had 82 cinemas, 64 of them located in the teeming capital, home to about 7 million of Iraq's 30 million people. One by one, they closed during the Saddam era, when the government controlled the selection and importation of films, until only five remained at the time of the invasion. The insurgency that followed and killed tens of thousands of people made Iraqis afraid of being in public places and crowds. They chose the relati

Iraqi cinema finds new direction

Iraq’s film industry has long been stunted by a lack of funding and governmental restrictions, but young and energetic directors and producers are working to turn it around.

Members of the Kurdish security forces take part in an intensive security deployment in Jalawla, Diyala province December 1, 2014. The blood of two militants killed during Islamic State's rout in the Iraqi town of Jalawla has yet to be washed away, but a turf war is already brewing between Kurdish and Shi'ite forces that jointly drove the insurgents out. The recapture of disputed territory and towns such as Jalawla is reopening rivalries over the boundary between areas of Kurdish control and those adminis

Iraqi residents denied return to town seized from IS

Some four months after being retaken from Islamic State fighters, Jalawla, in the Kurdistan region, remains uninhabited and divided among peshmerga, Shiite militias and Asayish, with residents awaiting resolution of who will ultimately control it.

People surf the Internet at an Internet cafe in Baghdad November 11, 2012. Iraqi telecommunications operators have warned that government plans to charge for the extra spectrum which they need to launch long-awaited 3G services could slow Internet adoption and economic growth. Picture taken November 11, 2012. To match story IRAQ-TELECOMS/ REUTERS/Mohammed Ameen (IRAQ - Tags: BUSINESS TELECOMS SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY SOCIETY) - RTR3ADY5

Iraqis turn to social media for IS coverage

Iraqis are shunning broadcast and print media in favor of social networking sites to spread and follow news about the fighting against the Islamic State.

Iraqis inspect the destruction caused by an explosion at the entrance of a monastery in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, 06 January 2008. Bombs exploded today outside two churches and a monastery in Mosul, wounding four people and slightly damaging the buildings, police said. AFP PHOTO/MUJAHED MOHAMMED (Photo credit should read MUJAHED MOHAMMED/AFP/Getty Images)

Ninevah monastery hopes for liberation

Past regular visitors to St. George's Monastery, north of Mosul, have been saddened and horrified by the acts of destruction by Islamic State members at the site.

A billboard is seen as smoke rises from a clash with Islamic State militants in the town of al-Alam March 9, 2015. Just north of Tikrit, home city of executed Sunni former president Saddam Hussein, Iraqi security forces and Shi?ite militia fighters began an offensive to regain control over the town of al-Alam. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani (IRAQ - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST CONFLICT) - RTR4SNWP

Iraq's Rambo fights against IS

An Iraqi fighter who goes by the name "Abu Azrael" has been made into a legendary, fierce Shiite fighter by the Iraqi media in its coverage of the battle against the Islamic State.

Syrian women walk along an agriculture field after finishing their work in the Lebanese village of Ammiq in west Bekaa March 2, 2015. REUTERS/Jamal Saidi (LEBANON - Tags: SOCIETY IMMIGRATION BUSINESS EMPLOYMENT AGRICULTURE) - RTR4RSZD

Al-Monitor highlights diversity of Islamic feminism

Al-Monitor’s monthlong series on women concludes; Lebanese foreign minister appeals to UN Security Council for protection of Christians; members of Congress seek "formal dialogue" on future of Turkish democracy; the fault lines in Aleppo; have Israeli elections sparked long-stalled Palestinian reconciliation?; Ali Hashem profiles self-proclaimed Islamic State Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Saddam Hussein speaks to the Presiding Judge Rizgur Ameen Hana Al-Saedi as his trial begins in a heavily fortified courthouse in Baghdad's Green Zone October 19, 2005. Behind Saddam on his immediate right is Awad Hamad al-Badar, while in the second row are (R to L) Mizhar Abdullah Ruwayyid and Taha Yassin Ramadan. In the third row are (R to L) Ali Dayim Ali, Mohammed Azawi. A defiant Saddam went on trial on Wednesday for crimes against humanity over the killing of more than 140 Shi'ites more than two decade

Saddam Hussein's tomb haunts Tikrit residents

Iraqis have been obsessing about Saddam Hussein’s body and the fate of his legacy.

Iraq's army chief General Babakir Zebari (R) meets with U.S. Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the defence ministry in Baghdad November 15, 2014. The top U.S. military officer, Dempsey, arrived on Saturday in Baghdad on an unannounced visit as U.S. commanders prepare to expand American assistance to Iraqi and Kurdish forces battling the Islamic State. REUTERS/Stringer (IRAQ - Tags - Tags: CIVIL UNREST POLITICS MILITARY) - RTR4E9AP

Iraq accepts international support in its war against IS

Iraqis should dismiss criticism against the US role in the war against the Islamic State, because this war is international and the country needs any help it can get, whether foreign or local.

Representative Ed Royce (R-CA) leaves a Republican caucus meeting at the Capitol in Washington August 1, 2014. A bill to fund border security blew up in House Speaker John Boehner's face on Thursday, leaving Republicans in disarray and struggling to reconcile Tea Party demands with the need to deal with a humanitarian crisis on the southwestern border with Mexico. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS SOCIETY IMMIGRATION) - RTR40XQR

Will Congress arm Iraqi Kurds?

The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs panel is lining up support for his bid to bypass Baghdad.

Residents buy vegetables in a market in Baghdad's Karrada district August 14, 2012. Iraq relies on imports from neighbours like Syria, Turkey and Iran for 95 percent of its consumer goods. Syria in particular is a key supplier of manufactured goods, fresh vegetables and fruit. But as an uprising there against President Bashar al-Assad grinds through its 17th month, the supply of Syrian goods to Iraq is slowly drying up as Syrian businesses are forced to close and trucks struggle to cross borders that have s

Imported goods crowd out local production in Iraq

Flooded with imported goods, the Iraqi market is grappling with a serious lack of local products, due to the displacement of farmers, lack in government control and almost absent support for the domestic industry.

Fighters from the Shi'ite Badr Brigade militia stand near their flag as they guard at a checkpoint along a highway recently taken from militants of the Islamic State, outside the town of Sulaiman Pek September 5, 2014. The highway, which continues south to Baghdad, is now controlled by Shi'ite militia fighters and the Kurdish Peshmerga. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah (IRAQ - Tags: CIVIL UNREST POLITICS CONFLICT) - RTR454AO

Is the Shiite revival here?

Iran's support of religiously motivated forces in the Middle East has been viewed by many as a success while Saudi Arabia has struggled to find find reliable proxies.

Shi'ite fighters known as Hashid Shaabi walk as smoke rises from an explosives-laden military vehicle driven by an Islamic State suicide bomber which exploded during an attack on the southern edge of Tikrit March 12, 2015. Iraqi security forces and mainly Shi'ite militia exchanged fire sporadically with Islamic State fighters in Tikrit on Thursday, a day after they pushed into Saddam Hussein's home city in their biggest offensive yet against the militants. A Reuters photographer saw one car bomb explode on

PM Barzani: Shiite militias should be regulated

In an interview with Al-Monitor, KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani addresses the fight against IS, the rise of the Iraqi Shiite militias and relations with Baghdad.