Iraq said on Tuesday that anti-government protests in Baghdad have been beleaguered by "criminal groups" who seek to cause havoc in the country after three demonstrators were killed. The Interior Ministry said in a report that "security services have monitored dangerous criminal groups seeking to create chaos" during the demonstrations. "Their mission is to trigger security forces to attack demonstrators by starting conflict with them," said the report. The ministry urged protesters to “cooperate” with security forces to identify the…

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Clashes between Iraqi protesters and security forces in central Baghdad killed at least two demonstrators overnight, security and medical sources said on Monday. It was the first such deadly incident in months at Tahrir Square, which became a symbol of anti-government protests during months-long mass unrest last year. The protesters had begun marching from Tahrir to nearby Tayaran Square chanting about worsening power cuts during a heat wave that has sent temperatures soaring above 50 degrees Celsius…

A German art curator who was kidnapped in Baghdad has been freed by a government operation, officials have said. Hella Mewis, who was was taken by armed men outside the Beit Tarkib arts centre on Monday night, was rescued at 6.25 a.m. local time on Friday in a security operation outside the Iraqi capital, according to a security source speaking to AP. Mewis is originally from Berlin but has lived in Baghdad for seven years, running an arts programme for…

London: A British judge says the jailing of a man who "sold his soul" by joining a major corruption ring will hopefully offer some sense of justice to the Iraqi people whose vast oil fields were exploited after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Ziad Akle was sentenced to five years in prison on Thursday for his "leading role" in the Unaoil corruption scandal first exposed by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in 2016. In his sentencing remarks, Judge Martin Beddoe said the 45-year-old and…

Rights activist and art curator Hella Mewis was kidnapped outside her office in Baghdad by unidentified men. The incident is the latest in a series of abductions of anti-government activists. A German national was kidnapped on Monday night by unidentified militants in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, rights activists said. Hella Mewis, who runs an arts program at the Iraqi art collective Tarkib, was abducted outside her office in central Baghdad, said Ali al-Bayati, a member of the semi-official Iraqi High…

Saudi Arabia and Iraq yesterday signed several joint investment agreements covering, energy, sports education and health sectors. Official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) yesterday reported that an Iraqi delegation, led by the country’s Finance Minister Ali Allawi, arrived in Riyadh on Sunday on an official visit, during which he held meetings with his Saudi counterpart, Abdel Aziz Bin Salman. The visit was made as part of the efforts carried out by the Saudi-Iraqi Coordination Council. The Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi was reported…

Dozens demonstrated in front of Dhi Qar Oil Company and blocked three of its gates with burning tires. They also demonstrated outside the Diwan of the governorate. Protesters in the Shyoukh market district and other areas in the governorate forced officials to shut public institutions, and called for the removal of the governor. Thousands of contract-employees in the Southwest Networks Directorate demanded authorities pay their overdue salaries. They also called for changing their contracts to improve their monthly wages. The…

DOHUK, Iraq — Iraq's minister of water resources says his country will face severe water shortages if agreements are not forged with neighboring Turkey over Ankara's irrigation and dam projects that have decreased river inflows to Iraq's parched plains. Descending from the mountains of southeast Turkey and coursing through Syria and then Iraq before emptying out in the Persian Gulf, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are Iraq's main water source and essential to for agriculture. But tensions have mounted over…

Iraqi PM Mustafa Al-Kadhimi is expected to meet Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei Baghdad proposed a package of energy-focused development opportunities in Iraq to Saudi Arabia earlier this month BAGHDAD: Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi will travel to Saudi Arabia and Iran back-to-back next week, carefully balancing ties to regional rivals in his first foreign trip as premier, officials said Saturday. On Sunday, Al-Kadhimi will host Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Baghdad, before traveling with Iraq’s ministers of oil, electricity, planning…

Demonstrators in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square held a symbolic funeral on Tuesday for the recently assassinated Iraqi security analyst, Husham Al Hashimi. Al Hashimi (Member of the Iraq Advisory Council – IAC) was killed in his car in front of his home on Monday and many believe that proxies linked to the Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Quds Force are responsible. He was taken to hospital with “bullet wounds in several body parts”, according to a medical source who spoke to the media,…