Iraq

Turkey summoned Iranian Ambassador Mohammed Farazmand in Ankara on Sunday to complain about Iran’s criticism of Turkish military operations in Iraq. The complaint concerned demands by another Iranian ambassador, Iraj Masjedi in Baghdad, for Turkey to suspend operations and remove all of its forces from Iraqi territory.

The Biden Administration said it had legal authority to conduct lethal airstrikes in Syria under Article II and United Nations Charter 51.

PressTV, an Iranian government propaganda outlet, suggested President Joe Biden’s decision to bomb targets tied to Iran-backed militias in Syria on Thursday may be linked to “numerous reports” of American support for the Islamic State.

China’s state-run Global Times newspaper mocked President Joe Biden on Friday, quoting his declaration, “America is back,” in a headline about his decision to bomb Syria on Thursday evening.

Shamima Begum, the teenager who joined ISIS and shocked with comments on beheading non-Muslims cannot return, the Supreme Court ruled.

President Joe Biden ordered his first military airstrikes on Thursday, targeting “multiple facilities” used by by Iranian-backed militia groups in eastern Syria, according to the Pentagon.

Police in Slovenia have discovered 13 migrants from Iraq who were hidden in a cargo truck, suffering from dehydration and a lack of oxygen.

Pope Francis will travel next month to Iraq, a land devastated by ongoing conflicts that have uprooted more than a million Christians in just two decades, France 24 reports.

Members of Iraq’s persecuted Christian community attempting to return home over three years after the Islamic State’s “caliphate” fell are struggling to resettle, multiple reports highlighted Sunday, as Muslim militias and fraudsters have stolen many of their homes, while others lie in ruin.

Several “national security experts” interviewed for an essay in The Root published on Thursday, attacked the Republican Party, claiming it behaves “like a terror group,” is rife with “terrorist sympathizers,” and should be viewed as “enemy combatants.”

Pope Francis’ plans to travel to Iraq on March 5 are “unaffected” by recent violence in Baghdad and Erbil, the Vatican and Iraq’s Foreign Ministry concur.

Jens Stoltenberg, secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), announced on Thursday that another 3,500 troops will be sent to Iraq, joining 500 NATO forces already in the country. The United States currently has about 2,500 troops in Iraq.

An Iran-backed militant group in Iraq called Saraya Awlia al-Dam, or “Guardians of Blood Brigades,” quickly took credit for Monday’s rocket attack on the Erbil International Airport in the Kurdistan region.

A militia believed to be tied to the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) took responsibility on Tuesday for a rocket attack on Erbil, Iraq, that resulted in damage to the Chinese consulate there.

Islamist Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned the United States in remarks Monday to stop “siding with terrorists” for Washington’s continued support of Syrian Kurdish groups instrumental to defeating the Islamic State.

The Iraqi government has ordained a “total curfew” during the March 5-8 visit of Pope Francis following recent violent attacks in the country.

Islamic State terrorists executed a “surprise attack” on Iraqi police in Kirkuk, a multi-ethnic region in the nation’s north, late on Thursday, killing an officer and injuring at least three others according to the Kurdish outlet Rudaw.

Iranian Chief Justice Ebrahim Raeisi on Wednesday accused the U.S. government of helping the Islamic State recover its strength in Syria and spread its operatives into countries such as Iran that oppose U.S. hegemony. According to Raeisi, only Iran and the Shiite-dominated government of Iraq truly stand against ISIS.

The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, an organization founded by the former prime minister of the United Kingdom, published a report on Thursday that found terrorist militia aligned with Iran surged in numbers and influence across the Middle East after the 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The Islamic State terror group continues to pose a security threat in areas of northern Iraq disputed between Baghdad and the autonomous Kurdistan region, a leader of Kurdistan’s Peshmerga military said on Tuesday.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has deployed Peshmerga forces to northern Iraq to combat “increased threats” of attacks by Islamic State (ISIS), Kurdish news outlet Rudaw reported on Thursday.

In an interview with NPR on Tuesday former CIA operative Robert Grenier compared Trump to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

The Iraqi government executed three convicted Islamic terrorists Monday, amidst growing national sentiment that authorities are doing too little to stop jihad in the country.

Representatives of the Islamic State jihadist group confirmed Thursday that they organized twin suicide bombings in Baghdad, Iraq, that day that left 32 dead and over 100 injured.

Zeinab Soleimani, daughter of late Iranian terrorist Qasem Soleimani, threatened former President Donald Trump via Twitter on Wednesday following his departure from the White House, writing that he will “live in fear of foes” indefinitely.

Pope Francis sent a telegram to Iraqi President Barham Salih Thursday offering condolences and prayers for victims of twin suicide bombings that claimed the lives of at least 35 people.

Twin suicide bombers blew themselves up in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad Thursday morning, killing at least 28 and leaving scores injured, some of them critically.

Twin suicide bombings hit Iraq’s capital Thursday, killing at least six people and wounding at least 25 others, police and state TV said.

Kurdish news service Rudaw reported Tuesday that residents of Mosul are still waiting for the corpses of the Islamic State’s victims to be cleared from the streets. The city was liberated from ISIS control four years ago.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence used a series of meetings with troops over the weekend to declare his pride that America entered no new wars during President Donald Trump’s administration.