| Syria opposition to join peace talks to oust Assad Posted: 18 Jan 2014 03:34 PM PST  Syria's deeply divided opposition finally agreed Saturday to join an international peace conference, saying it wanted to remove President Bashar al-Assad from power, a day after Damascus offered concessions. Damascus had already said it will attend, although US Secretary of State John Kerry has accused the regime of diversionary tactics, saying "nobody is going to be fooled". Leader Ahmad Jarba said the umbrella group would be there with the sole aim of removing Assad from power. Western powers welcomed the opposition decision, which Kerry said was "in the interests of all the Syrian people who have suffered so horribly under the brutality of the (Bashar-al-) Assad regime".
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| 21 killed in wave of Baghdad attacks Posted: 18 Jan 2014 12:52 PM PST  Attacks across Baghdad, including car bombs at an up-scale shopping mall and near a juvenile detention centre, killed 21 people Saturday as rising violence fuels fears of all-out sectarian war. The bombings and a deadly, weeks-long standoff in the western province of Anbar, part of a nationwide surge in violence that has already killed more than 600 this month, come just months ahead of parliamentary elections. Diplomats including UN chief Ban Ki-moon have urged authorities to pursue political reconciliation with disaffected Sunni Arabs to resolve the unrest, but the US has said it will provide training for Iraqi forces in a third country and ship small arms to the country's security forces. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has taken a hard line and ruled out dialogue with militants.
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| Clashes, bombings kill 30 people in Iraq Posted: 18 Jan 2014 12:35 PM PST  BAGHDAD (AP) — Violence across Iraq, including a series of car bombings and fighting between militants and government troops over control of the country's contested Anbar province, killed at least 30 people Saturday, officials said.
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| Bombs, mortar fire kill 14 people in Baghdad Posted: 18 Jan 2014 11:11 AM PST Mortar fire, car bombs and gunfire killed at least 14 people and wounded 55 in Baghdad on Saturday, police and medics said. In Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, gunmen badly wounded a correspondent of the opposition Sharqiya TV channel. Helicopters hovered over some areas of Baghdad after the blasts as ambulance sirens wailed and security forces closed some roads, residents said. Two years after U.S. troops left Iraq, violence has climbed back to its highest levels since the Sunni-Shi'ite bloodletting of 2006-2007, when tens of thousands of people were killed. |
| Clashes, bombings kill 20 people in Iraq Posted: 18 Jan 2014 11:02 AM PST BAGHDAD (AP) — Violence across Iraq, including a series of car bombings and fighting between militants and government troops over control of the country's contested Anbar province, killed at least 20 people Saturday, officials said. |
| Clashes, bombings kill 6 people in Iraq Posted: 18 Jan 2014 02:33 AM PST BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi authorities say clashes between militants and government troops as well as two bombings at marketplaces have killed six people. |
| Islamist militants strengthen grip on Iraq's Falluja Posted: 18 Jan 2014 02:28 AM PST  By Suadad al-Salhy BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Al Qaeda and other insurgent groups have tightened their grip on Falluja, defying the Shi'ite-led Iraqi government's efforts to persuade local tribesmen to expel them from the Sunni Muslim city, residents and officials say. Despite an army siege, fighters and weapons have been flowing into the city, where U.S. troops fought some of their fiercest battles during their 2003-11 occupation of Iraq. In an embarrassing setback for a state that has around a million men under arms, the al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and its tribal allies overran Falluja and parts of the nearby city Ramadi on January 1. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, seeking a third term in a parliamentary election in April, deployed troops and tanks around the city of 300,000 and funneled weapons to anti-Qaeda tribesmen, but has ruled out a full-scale military assault.
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| Syria offers concessions ahead of Geneva peace talks Posted: 17 Jan 2014 08:17 PM PST  Syria offered rebels concessions, including a prisoner exchange, ahead of peace talks in Switzerland next week as the fractured opposition sought to get their own stalled negotiations underway Saturday on whether to attend. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, in Moscow for discussions with his Russian counterpart Friday, also raised hopes of a ceasefire in Aleppo, presenting Sergei Lavrov with a "security" plan for the devastated northern city. Muallem said the Syrian regime was willing to swap prisoners with the rebels in the first such mass exchange since the conflict began in 2011 while Lavrov said Damascus was ready to take "a series of humanitarian steps" in the civil war. Muallem said Syria would "make every effort to ensure Geneva II is a success and meets the aspirations of the Syrian people and the direct orders of President Bashar al-Assad".
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| Iraq threatens Turk boycott, contract cuts in Kurd row Posted: 17 Jan 2014 04:59 PM PST  Iraq threatened to boycott Turkish companies and cancel contracts with Turkish firms in an intensifying row over moves to export oil from its northern Kurdish region, in remarks released Saturday. Oil Minister Abdelkarim al-Luaybi said the planned export of oil from the three-province autonomous region was a "red line" and one that would increase instability in Iraq, arguing that Turkey was not acting in its interests. Iraqi officials have summoned Turkey's charge d'affaires to Baghdad over the announcement by the Kurdish region this month that its first shipment of crude oil sent directly to Turkey, without passing via pipelines controlled by the central government, had gone on sale, with more expected to follow.
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| U.S. in Talks About Training Iraqi Forces Posted: 17 Jan 2014 03:53 PM PST The Pentagon is in "discussions" with Iraq about training possibilities of Iraq's security forces, but it appears U.S. military trainers would not be involved. The United States is also processing a new request from Iraq for additional small arms and ammunition in the wake of... |
| Up to 15, mostly foreigners, killed in Kabul suicide attack Posted: 17 Jan 2014 03:08 PM PST By Jessica Donati and Mirwais Harooni KABUL (Reuters) - Up to 15 people, mostly foreigners, were killed on Friday when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a popular Lebanese restaurant in the Afghanistan capital of Kabul, police said. Islamist Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the attack in the upscale Wazir Akbar Khan district, which hosts many embassies and restaurants catering for expatriates. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said its representative in Afghanistan was one of the dead, and the United Nations said four of its staff were unaccounted for. General Ayoub Salangi, an Afghan deputy interior minister, said between 13 and 15 people, mostly foreigners, were killed but their nationalities were not immediately clear. |
| Clashes in Iraq's embattled Anbar province kill 5 Posted: 17 Jan 2014 08:55 AM PST  BAGHDAD (AP) — A suicide bomber attacked a gathering of an anti-Al-Qaida militia as security forces and extremists fought in Iraq's contested Anbar province, violence that killed at least five people Friday, officials said.
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