Yahoo! News: Iraq

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• Syria, opposition both confirm presence at talks
• Is Iran borrowing North Korea's nuclear playbook?
• Syrian opposition to attend Geneva peace conference
• If sanctions worked with Iran, will they work with 'rogue' nations?
• Syria says it won't give up power in peace talks
• Iraq warns Turkey Kurd oil deal would harm ties
• Echoes of sectarian war as 49 killed in Iraq
• Iraqi Kurdish oil exports to Turkey may start next month
• Execution-style sectarian killings on upswing in Iraq
• Attacks in Iraq kill 36; 13 corpses found
• Five Best Wednesday Columns
• Soccer-Japan World Cup draw factbox
• Soccer-Australia World Cup draw factbox
• Attacks in Iraq kill 33; 13 corpses found
• UK-based Standard Chartered opens branch in Iraq
• Syria tells Western foes to stop dreaming Assad will go
• Moscow police detain 15 Islamists with suicide belts
• Iraq: Attacks kill 24; corpses shot in head found
• Iraq: 13 executed corpses found as attacks kill 15
• Iran's Rouhani says economic problems go beyond sanctions
• String of bombings, shootings kill at least 20 across Iraq
• Iraq: 13 executed corpses found as attacks kill 5
• Iraq: Separate attacks kill at least 5 in Baghdad
• UN Security Council considering sanctions on Central African Republic
• Insight: After Assad, Syria democrats learn to fear Qaeda
• Today in History
• Iraq says no success tracing killers of Iranian dissidents
• Should Congress decide an indefinite military extension in Afghanistan?
• Saudi Arabia Considers Nuclear Weapons After Iran’s Geneva Deal

Syria, opposition both confirm presence at talks Posted: 27 Nov 2013 04:41 PM PST DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syria's government and the head of the main Western-backed opposition coalition both confirmed Wednesday that they would participate in a U.N.-sponsored peace conference.

Is Iran borrowing North Korea's nuclear playbook? Posted: 27 Nov 2013 03:20 PM PST Critics of the deal to cap Iran's nuclear programme say it repeats mistakes made with North Korea, but analysts say there is little to suggest Tehran will follow Pyongyang's path of broken promises to a nuclear bomb. Under the agreement sealed in Geneva on Sunday, Iran undertook to brake its nuclear drive for the next six months in exchange for limited sanctions relief. Republican dissenters in the US Congress warned that Tehran was borrowing from Pyongyang's well-worn playbook, buying time and financial largesse with false promises that ultimately led to North Korea's first nuclear test in 2006. In North Korea's case, a series of aid-for-denuclearisation agreements over the past 20 years have fallen apart, and Pyongyang is openly developing weapons on all fronts following its third and largest nuclear test in February this year.

Syrian opposition to attend Geneva peace conference Posted: 27 Nov 2013 02:52 PM PST By Michael Georgy CAIRO (Reuters) - The Syrian National Coalition opposition group will attend the long-delayed "Geneva 2" talks in January aimed at ending the country's civil war, the group's president, Ahmad Jarba, said on Wednesday. In an interview with Reuters and the Associated Press, he also said regional power Iran should only be allowed to attend if it stopped taking part in the bloodshed in Syria and withdrew its forces and proxies. It insists that President Bashar al-Assad can play no future role in Syria. "We are now ready to go to Geneva," Jarba said on a visit to Cairo, adding that the opposition viewed the Geneva talks as a step to a leadership transition and a "genuine democratic transformation in Syria".

If sanctions worked with Iran, will they work with 'rogue' nations? Posted: 27 Nov 2013 02:43 PM PST Iran's acceptance this week of a deal to freeze much of its nuclear program for at least six months is placing a new spotlight on economic sanctions as a tool for getting outlier nations to "yes" on stopping activities the international community finds objectionable. The unprecedented sanctions that the US and other international players, in particular the European Union (EU), placed on Iran's economy in recent years played a key role in bringing Iran to the negotiating table, international affairs analysts widely agree. But Iran's situation may have been almost tailor-made for sanctions to produce results, some experts say. A large middle-class population had just this year brought to power a new president with a mandate to relieve Iranians' economic pain, they note, and to fashion a new, less combative relationship between Iran and the wider world – including arch-enemy America.

Syria says it won't give up power in peace talks Posted: 27 Nov 2013 02:18 PM PST DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — The Syrian government said Wednesday it will participate in U.N.-sponsored peace talks aimed at ending the country's civil war, but insisted that it is not going to the conference to hand over power.

Iraq warns Turkey Kurd oil deal would harm ties Posted: 27 Nov 2013 12:21 PM PST Iraq warned Turkey Wednesday that the opening of a new oil export pipeline from its autonomous Kurdish region, which is outside central government control, would seriously harm relations. "The Iraqi government informed the Turkish ambassador in Baghdad of its strong opposition to signing the pipeline deal with Kurdistan," Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's spokesman, Ali Mussawi, told AFP.

Echoes of sectarian war as 49 killed in Iraq Posted: 27 Nov 2013 09:43 AM PST Suicide bombings and other attacks killed 30 people in Iraq Wednesday, and authorities found the bodies of 19 others shot dead in Baghdad, scenes eerily reminiscent of the country's gruesome sectarian war. Most of the violence struck Baghdad and Sunni Arab areas of northern and western Iraq, which have borne the brunt of the months-long spike in bloodletting. Four suicide bombers detonated their explosives, but the carnage could have been much worse because security forces shot dead several would-be suicide attackers. Meanwhile, in two separate areas of the capital, police found the bodies of 14 men, all in their 20s or 30s, and all shot dead, medical officials said.

Iraqi Kurdish oil exports to Turkey may start next month Posted: 27 Nov 2013 09:07 AM PST Oil exports from autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan to Turkey could start next month, the region's prime minister said as he held talks in Ankara Wednesday on planned energy tie-ups that are likely to anger Baghdad. Kurdish authorities in Iraq are seeking ways of selling their oil on international markets outside the control of Baghdad but a lingering dispute with the central government has paralysed development of new oil and gas projects in the region. Prime minister Nechirvan Barzani told reporters in Ankara late Tuesday that a pipeline from the Kurdish region could start carrying oil "before Christmas", without elaborating. He held a three-hour meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Energy Minister Taner Yildiz on Wednesday to discuss comprehensive energy deals between Ankara and Arbil.

Execution-style sectarian killings on upswing in Iraq Posted: 27 Nov 2013 08:20 AM PST By Kareem Raheem BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - Police found the bodies of 13 people around Baghdad on Wednesday, the apparent victims of execution-style shootings that recalled the height of Iraq's sectarian slaughter. This year has been Iraq's most violent since the Sunni-Shi'ite bloodbath of 2006-07, now with a resurgence of sectarian killings as well as a growing insurgent campaign of bomb and gun attacks targeting security forces and civilians. Police retrieved the corpses of eight men, blindfolded and handcuffed, in the mainly Sunni Muslim area of Arab Jubbor, south of Baghdad, on Wednesday. ...

Attacks in Iraq kill 36; 13 corpses found Posted: 27 Nov 2013 08:13 AM PST BAGHDAD (AP) — Attacks across Iraq including a suicide bombing at a Sunni funeral killed at least 36 on Wednesday, authorities said, while police found 13 bodies at two different locations with gunshot wounds to their heads.

Five Best Wednesday Columns Posted: 27 Nov 2013 07:10 AM PST "The Saudis have no allies in American politics to rally against the Obama Administration, and no desire to set themselves against the other international powers who signed the agreement, ... But they are as unhappy as the Israelis, if for slightly different reasons," writes Gause, a political science professor at the University of Vermont and a senior fellow at the Brookings Doha Center. The Saudis worry that "geopolitical trends in the Middle East are aligning against them, threatening both their regional stature and their domestic security." While the Obama Administration "sees an Iranian commitment to foreswear nuclear weapons as a benefit to allies like Saudi Arabia," the Saudis, "without a seat at the negotiating table, fear that Washington will ratify Iranian hegemony in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and the Persian Gulf in exchange for a nuclear deal." Middle East scholar Andrew Exum tweets, "Really solid analysis from Greg Gause, as one would expect."

Soccer-Japan World Cup draw factbox Posted: 27 Nov 2013 07:01 AM PST TOKYO, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Factbox on World Cup qualifiersJapan: Form and Prospects Asian champions Japan were the first side to qualify for thefinals in Brazil with their fast flowing football, led byKeisuke Honda and Shinji Kagawa, too much for their regionalopponents and raising hopes of a World Cup breakthrough. Head coach Alberto Zaccheroni had demanded tougher friendlyfixtures in preparation for the finals and the JFA delivered butthe sterner opposition only heightened concerns about theirdefensive frailty and damaged confidence. ...

Soccer-Australia World Cup draw factbox Posted: 27 Nov 2013 07:00 AM PST Nov 27 (Reuters) - Factbox on World Cup qualifiersAustralia: Form and Prospects Successive 6-0 friendly defeats to Brazil and France in thewake of a laboured qualifying campaign resulted in the sackingof German Holger Osieck and his replacement by Australian AngePostecoglou last month. Osieck's failure to bring younger players through to replacethe ageing golden generation was a major factor in his dismissaland one of the attractions of Postecoglou was his work inrejuvenating teams at club level. ...

Attacks in Iraq kill 33; 13 corpses found Posted: 27 Nov 2013 06:50 AM PST BAGHDAD (AP) — Attacks across Iraq including a suicide bombing at a Sunni funeral killed at least 33 on Wednesday, authorities said, while police found 13 bodies at two different locations with gunshot wounds to their heads.

UK-based Standard Chartered opens branch in Iraq Posted: 27 Nov 2013 06:12 AM PST British bank Standard Chartered PLC says it has opened a branch in Iraq's capital, Baghdad and that it hopes to play a role in the country's economic growth. A statement said Wednesday that the main aim ...

Syria tells Western foes to stop dreaming Assad will go Posted: 27 Nov 2013 05:55 AM PST By Dominic Evans BEIRUT (Reuters) - Western countries which demand that President Bashar al-Assad step down should either stop dreaming or forget attending peace talks in January, Syria said on Wednesday. Responding to an announcement that the long-delayed "Geneva 2" conference aimed at resolving Syria's civil war will be held on January 22, it said Assad's government would take part in the meeting but reiterated that it had no plans to surrender power. The head of the Western-backed Free Syrian Army rebel brigades has rejected the Geneva talks and says there will be no ceasefire during the meeting. The National Coalition opposition group, which also has Western support but minimal influence over fighters on the ground, says it will decide next month whether to go to Geneva.

Moscow police detain 15 Islamists with suicide belts Posted: 27 Nov 2013 05:08 AM PST Russian police on Wednesday detained 15 heavily-armed radical Islamists in Moscow who allegedly belong to a banned offshoot of the Al-Qaeda terror network and were preparing suicide strikes. The interior ministry said members of Takfir wal-Hijra -- a group formed in Egypt in the late 1960s and outlawed in Russia in 2010 -- had been discovered hiding weapons and suicide belts along with extremist literature. The interior ministry said the group had been funding its activities by "conducting general crime" in and around Moscow. Russia remains on heightened security alert ahead of the February 7-23 Winter Olympic Games in the Black Sea resort of Sochi that lies near the volatile North Caucasus.

Iraq: Attacks kill 24; corpses shot in head found Posted: 27 Nov 2013 04:53 AM PST BAGHDAD (AP) — Police around Iraq's capital found the corpses of 13 men Wednesday with gunshot wounds to their heads, as other attacks in the country killed at least 24, authorities said.

Iraq: 13 executed corpses found as attacks kill 15 Posted: 27 Nov 2013 04:17 AM PST BAGHDAD (AP) — Police around Iraq's capital found the corpses of 13 men Wednesday apparently gunned down in executions, as other attacks in the country killed at least 15, authorities said.

Iran's Rouhani says economic problems go beyond sanctions Posted: 27 Nov 2013 03:33 AM PST By Isabel Coles DUBAI (Reuters) - President Hassan Rouhani said Iran's economic problems went beyond sanctions, blaming "unparalleled stagflation" on the profligacy and mismanagement of his predecessor, hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In office from 2005 until August, Ahmadinejad presided over a period of unprecedented revenue growth due to high oil prices but, analysts say, squandered much of it on subsidies that pumped money into the economy and drove up inflation. He also antagonized the United States and the West by threatening to wipe Israel off "the page of time", repeated denials of the Holocaust and an uncompromising stance on Iran's disputed nuclear program. The International Monetary Fund expects Iran's economy will shrink 1.5 percent this year in inflation-adjusted terms, after an estimated 1.9 percent contraction last year which was the biggest since 1988, when Iran's eight-year war with Iraq ended.

String of bombings, shootings kill at least 20 across Iraq Posted: 27 Nov 2013 02:22 AM PST At least 20 people were killed and 35 wounded in bombings and shootings in Iraq on Wednesday, police and medical sources said, the latest in a string of attacks that threaten to tilt the country back into all-out sectarian warfare. Four suicide bombers targeted a police station in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, killing four policemen and wounding 15. Another attacked a police station just north of Ramadi, killing four officers and wounding seven, the sources said. Iraq is suffering from its worst surge in violence in at least five years, with insurgents stepping up bombing campaigns against security forces and civilians.

Iraq: 13 executed corpses found as attacks kill 5 Posted: 27 Nov 2013 01:40 AM PST BAGHDAD (AP) — Police around Iraq's capital found the corpses of 13 men Wednesday apparently gunned down in executions, as other attacks in the country killed at least five, authorities said.

Iraq: Separate attacks kill at least 5 in Baghdad Posted: 27 Nov 2013 12:22 AM PST BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi officials say separate attacks in Baghdad have killed at least five people and wounded 13.

UN Security Council considering sanctions on Central African Republic Posted: 26 Nov 2013 10:45 PM PST The U.N. Security Council is considering imposing an arms embargo on the virtually lawless Central African Republic as well as putting a travel ban on people undermining the country's stability, fueling violence and abusing human rights. The landlocked, mineral-rich nation of 4.6 million people has slipped into chaos since northern Seleka rebels seized the capital, Bangui, in March and ousted President Francois Bozize. France has drafted a resolution that would not only see the council establish its first new sanctions regime in 18 months but also authorize African peacekeepers and French troops to take all necessary measures to protect civilians, restore security and help re-establish state authority. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, posted on Twitter on last week: "Long past time for swift deployment of AU forces and imposing sanctions on perpetrators of violence." The Security Council already has 13 sanctions regimes in place on Somalia/Eritrea, al Qaeda, Iraq, Liberia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Sudan, Lebanon, North Korea, Iran, Libya, the Taliban and Guinea-Bissau.

Insight: After Assad, Syria democrats learn to fear Qaeda Posted: 26 Nov 2013 09:34 PM PST By Mariam Karouny BEIRUT (Reuters) - When he was agitating for revolution, urging fellow Syrians to rise up against President Bashar al-Assad, Abdullah dreaded the midnight knock at the door from the secret police. Now that the uprising has succeeded in his home town near Aleppo, pro-democracy activists are living in fear again - and this time those who brand them "traitor" don't bother to knock. Two years ago, after Abdullah broke off his studies to run social media campaigns against Assad, he was held and tortured by security men. This summer, it happened again - only now it was Islamist gunmen loyal to al Qaeda who smashed into his family's house, broke everything in their way and took him off to a cell where, once more, he was blindfolded and beaten.

Today in History Posted: 26 Nov 2013 09:01 PM PST Today is Wednesday, Nov. 27, the 331st day of 2013. There are 34 days left in the year.

Iraq says no success tracing killers of Iranian dissidents Posted: 26 Nov 2013 06:11 PM PST By Suadad al-Salhy BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq is hunting militants, still unidentified, who led a deadly attack on an Iranian dissident camp near Baghdad and dismisses suggestions its own security forces were behind the violence, a senior government official said. More than 50 people were killed at the dissident Mujahadin-e-Khalq (MEK) group's Camp Ashraf in September in an attack the United Nations described as "an atrocious crime" and which drew condemnation from the United States and Britain. MEK, which the U.S. State Department removed from its list of terrorist organizations last year, wants Iran's clerical leaders overthrown and fought on former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's side during the Iran-Iraq war in 1980s. The group, which has accused Iraqi security forces of being behind the attack, is no longer welcome in Iraq under the Shi'ite Muslim-led government that came to power after U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam in 2003.

Should Congress decide an indefinite military extension in Afghanistan? Posted: 26 Nov 2013 11:58 AM PST Bruce Ackerman from Yale Law says Congress, and not President Obama, should debate and decide the matter of extending the American military presence in Afghanistan.

Saudi Arabia Considers Nuclear Weapons After Iran’s Geneva Deal Posted: 26 Nov 2013 11:29 AM PST More than a day later the Cabinet offered its own pallid take: "If there is goodwill, then this agreement could represent a preliminary step toward a comprehensive solution to the Iranian nuclear program." Behind the gritted-teeth delivery there lurked an almost palpable sense of frustration, betrayal and impotence as Saudi Arabia watched its foremost foe gain ground in a 34-year competition for influence in the region. As discussions leading up to the historic agreement in Geneva unfurled over the past several months, Saudi did its utmost to express its discontent, lobbying behind closed doors for greater restrictions on Iran's nuclear program and rejecting at the last minute a long-sought seat on the U.N. Security Council. Saudi officials even threatened to get their own nuclear weapons; just before the talks concluded the Saudi ambassador to the U.K., Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz, told the Times of London: "We are not going to sit idly by and receive a threat there and not think seriously how we can best defend our country and our region."

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