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

Iran cover image

Iraq

August 25, 2026

Baghdad 3:35 am

30°C

Leon Neal/Getty Images

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 police officer stands guard in front of the Bardo Museum in Tunis March 24, 2015. The national museum reopened on Tuesday, almost a week after a militant attack which killed 20 foreign visitors. REUTERS/Zoubeir Souissi - RTR4UMIW

The Islamic State in Africa

The Islamic State presence in the depth of the African continent was strengthened after Nigerian movement Boko Haram pledged allegiance to the terrorist group.

Shi'ite fighters chant slogans as they advance into the town of Tal Ksaiba, near the town of al-Alam, March 7, 2015. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani (IRAQ - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST CONFLICT)

Thaier Al-Sudani: "It was me and a few other Iraqi journalists working for local outlets. We went to the frontlines in coordination with the Iraqi government forces and supporting militias.

The press officer would come in the morning and take us to the frontline in a convoy.

Whenever an area was won from Islamic Sta

Iran wages psychological war against IS

Iran is waging a psychological war against the Islamic State in Iraq, promoting and highlighting the prominent role of Iraqi fighters among the country's paramilitary groups.

A man purported to be the reclusive leader of the militant Islamic State Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has made what would be his first public appearance at a mosque in the centre of Iraq's second city, Mosul, according to a video recording posted on the Internet on July 5, 2014, in this still image taken from video. There had previously been reports on social media that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi would make his first public appearance since his Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) changed its name to the Islamic S

The many names of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

Al-Monitor traces the journey that led an unremarkable religious student to become head of the Islamic State and self-proclaimed Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Iyad Allawi (L), Usama al-Nujaifi (2nd L), Iraq's supreme court judge Midhat al-Mahmoud (2nd R) and Nuri al-Maliki (R) stand together during a swearing-in at the parliament headquarters in Baghdad September 8, 2014. Iraq's parliament approved a new government headed by Haider al-Abadi as prime minister on Monday night, in a bid to rescue Iraq from collapse, with sectarianism and Arab-Kurdish tensions on the rise. The parliament approved for the ceremonial posts of vice presidents the last prime minister al-

National reconciliation in Iraq remains elusive

Since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the national reconciliation project has been subject to several interpretations, as the separation between the innocent and “those who have Iraqi blood on their hands” is still ambiguous.

An Iraqi Christian refugee girl holds a souvenir of the Holy Family as a boy looks on at a church in Hazmiyeh, near Beirut December 12, 2014. Christian leaders led the service for around 600 Iraqi Christian refugees, many of them children and the elderly. Iraqi Christians who sought refuge in Lebanon after Islamist militants tore through their homeland said they had no idea when they would be able to return as they gathered for prayers ahead of Christmas. Picture taken December 12, 2014. REUTERS/Jamal Saidi

Lebanese church struggles to support Iraqi refugees

The Chaldean church in Hazmiyeh, Lebanon, is doing all it can to help Iraqi Christian refugees flooding into the country.

Iraqi Christians find safe haven in Jordan’s churches

Many Iraqi Christian refugees have given up on the Middle East and refuse to ever go back to Iraq, even if the Islamic State is completely annihilated.

Iraqis walk past a traditional building in the oldest alley of the capital Baghdad on December 13, 2013. Baghdad was once the capital of an empire and the centre of the Islamic world, but at 1,250 years old, the Iraqi city is a far cry from its past glories after being ravaged by years of war and sanctions. AFP PHOTO/AHMAD AL-RUBAYE (Photo credit should read AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/Getty Images)

Iraqis struggle to maintain architectural heritage

Iraq’s historical landmarks are being destroyed and replaced by modern structures, as the government and municipalities fail to adopt measures that protect the country’s architectural heritage.

Iraqi policemen dig trenches at checkpoint in the Iraqi town of Taji, at the entrance of Baghdad, on June 13, 2014, as security forces are bolstering defenses in the capital. Jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants pushed towards the capital and US President Barack Obama said he was exploring all options to save Iraq's security forces from collapse. AFP PHOTO / AHMAD AL-RUBAYE (Photo credit should read AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/Getty Images)

Iraqis split over digging of security trenches

While some Iraqis argue that digging trenches between cities is an effective way to stop the infiltration of militants and achieve security, others claim they only further divide the nation and promote sectarianism.

An Iraqi woman walks past a giant poster showing Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tahrir Square in central Baghdad on February 05, 2015. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has ordered an end to a years-old nightly curfew in the Iraqi capital in a bid to ease restrictions on daily life despite persistent violence, officials said. The army and police checkpoints across Baghdad cause massive traffic jams that are a major source of irritation for Iraqis and often follow lax security procedures

Iran gathers power in Iraq as US further sidelined

Iran has succeeded in expanding its influence in Iraq by supporting the Shiite paramilitary forces there, a move that the United States has avoided since 2003.

Shi'ite fighters from Hashid Shaabi forces walk with their weapons at the front line at the Shi'ite Turkman village of Bashir, 20km south of Kirkuk, March 14, 2015. Kurdish peshmerga forces, backed by Shi'ite militia fighters, have been attacking Islamic State-held towns and villages south and west of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, peshmerga sources said. REUTERS/Ako Rasheed (IRAQ - Tags: CIVIL UNREST CONFLICT POLITICS MILITARY) - RTR4TCDN

What next for Iraq?

The Islamic State may be routed in Iraq, but the question of what is next remains unanswered.

Shi'ite fighters from Hashid Shaabi forces launch a rocket during clashes with Islamic State militants on the front line at the Shi'ite Turkman village of Bashir, 20km south of Kirkuk, March 14, 2015. Kurdish peshmerga forces, backed by Shi'ite militia fighters, have been attacking Islamic State-held towns and villages south and west of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, peshmerga sources said. REUTERS/Ako Rasheed (IRAQ - Tags: CIVIL UNREST CONFLICT POLITICS MILITARY) - RTR4TCBR

Iraq’s Shiite forces claim victory over IS

Sheikh Akram al-Kaabi, the leader of Hezbollah al-Nujaba, a major Iraqi Shiite resistance movement fighting IS, tells Al-Monitor in an exclusive interview that his group will target US planes if they get near his forces.

Visitors look at Assyrian mural sculptures from Khorsabad, at the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad March 8, 2015. Islamic State militants have desecrated another ancient Iraqi capital, the government said on March 11, 2015, razing parts of the 2,700-year-old city of Khorsabad famed for its colossal statues of human-headed winged bulls. Picture taken March 8, 2015. REUTERS/Khalid al-Mousily (IRAQ - Tags: SOCIETY CIVIL UNREST) - RTR4SZAO

Islamic State erases centuries of history

According to a sociology professor, extremist groups such as the Islamic State seek to return society to the early Middle Ages, when little to no art, science and culture existed.