Yahoo! News: Iraq

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• Syria rebels raid Lebanese town, capture troops
• Lebanese army battles gunmen at Syria border, 16 killed
• French police arrest Islamist militant at a Paris airport
• Royal Jordanian airline suspends flights to Iraq on security concerns
• Sunni insurgents, Kurds battle over north Iraq town
• Obama hosts Africa summit with an eye on legacy
• Jihadists seize oilfields in clashes with Iraq Kurds
• Gunmen circle Lebanon army posts after Syria 'militant' held
• Officials: Clashes, bombing kill 17 Iraq soldiers
• British Airways to keep flying over Iraq
• Tribesmen force jihadis out of Syrian villages
• Iraqi kidnappers set to release Turkish hostages
• Nusra chief in Syria's Idlib 'killed in attack'
• Jihadists kill 14 Iraq Kurds in battle over dam, oil facility
• NATO must respond to Russia: Cameron
• Today in History
• Pentagon Official: The Facts Are In, And Obama’s Policy Is A Direct Danger To The United States
• U.S. struggles in Middle East, with fewer allies and less influence

Syria rebels raid Lebanese town, capture troops Posted: 02 Aug 2014 05:00 PM PDT BEIRUT (AP) — Rebels fighting in Syria's civil war crossed into Lebanon and raided a border town Saturday, killing and capturing security force members in the most serious incursion into the tiny country during its neighbor's 3-year-old conflict.

Lebanese army battles gunmen at Syria border, 16 killed Posted: 02 Aug 2014 03:41 PM PDT By Alexander Dziadosz and Tom Perry BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Lebanese army battled Islamist fighters near the Syrian border on Saturday, killing 11 militants, a security official said, in a move against al Qaeda-linked gunmen who earlier had seized a police station and killed two soldiers. The gunmen included fighters from the Islamic State, a radical Sunni group that has seized control of large areas of Syria and Iraq, Lebanese security officials said. The fighting in the border town of Arsal marked some of the worst spillover violence since Syria's three-year-old war began, and risked exacerbating tensions in Lebanon among sectarian groups at odds over the Syrian conflict. At least three civilians were also killed, and 16 members of the security forces were taken hostage after fighters from the Nusra Front, al Qaeda's branch in Syria, seized the security building, security source said.

French police arrest Islamist militant at a Paris airport Posted: 02 Aug 2014 12:46 PM PDT French police on Friday arrested a Franco-Moroccan man they described as an Islamist militant at Roissy international airport on suspicion that he was part of a conspiracy to carry out attacks in France. The man, whose name and age were not made public, had just disembarked from a plane arriving from Istanbul after his expulsion by Turkish authorities, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. The statement did not say where the man had traveled before reaching Turkey, which is a common waystation for European Islamist militants en route to Syria. France, which estimates that 800 of its citizens have left to join Islamist groups in Syria, said this month it would ban individuals linked to radical Islamist groups from leaving the country to prevent such attacks.

Royal Jordanian airline suspends flights to Iraq on security concerns Posted: 02 Aug 2014 12:09 PM PDT Royal Jordanian, one of the main airlines serving Iraq, said on Saturday it had suspended all flights to Baghdad for at least 24 hours on security grounds. The Jordanian state carrier was "monitoring security developments" in Iraq and would review the resumption of flights over Iraqi airspace on Sunday, said Basel Al Kilani, an airline spokesman. Royal Jordanian until recently had an extensive network over Iraq, with a weekly total of 30 flights, serving Baghdad 11 times a week, as well as Basra in the south, and Irbil and Sulaymaniya in the Kurdish north. It stopped its twice-weekly flights to Mosul shortly after the northern city fell in June to the Islamic State (IS) militant group.

Sunni insurgents, Kurds battle over north Iraq town Posted: 02 Aug 2014 12:09 PM PDT Islamic State militants fought Kurdish forces on Saturday for the northern Iraqi town of Zumar located near an oil field and the Syrian border amid conflicting reports of who was in control. Jabbar Yawar, secretary general of the Kurdish peshmerga fighters, said his forces controlled Zumar and reinforcements were on the way. "Many Islamic State vehicles are wandering the town of Zumar and I can also see the flags on top of buildings," said one resident. The group formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant staged a lighting advance through northern Iraq in June, seizing large swathes of land in the biggest challenge to the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Obama hosts Africa summit with an eye on legacy Posted: 02 Aug 2014 11:30 AM PDT WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is gathering nearly 50 African heads of state in Washington for an unprecedented summit aimed in part at building his legacy on a continent where his commitment has been questioned.

Jihadists seize oilfields in clashes with Iraq Kurds Posted: 02 Aug 2014 11:22 AM PDT Islamic State jihadist fighters seized two small oilfields in northern Iraq on Saturday after a fierce battle with Kurdish peshmerga forces, Kurdish officials said. The jihadist attack launched late Friday on the Zumar area, northwest of Mosul, Iraq's second city, drew Kurdish forces deeper into a conflict which has raged for close to two months. The jihadists "attacked a peshmerga post in Zumar and a fierce battle erupted," said an official in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of Iraq's two main Kurdish parties. The PUK official said the peshmerga killed "around 100" IS fighters and captured 38.

Gunmen circle Lebanon army posts after Syria 'militant' held Posted: 02 Aug 2014 07:56 AM PDT Gunmen on Saturday encircled several Lebanese army checkpoints near Arsal on the border with Syria after troops detained a suspected member of a Syrian jihadist rebel group, security sources said. The standoff close to the town, many of whose residents support the uprising against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, came after the arrest at a checkpoint. "Armed groups surrounded army checkpoints in the Arsal area after the detention of Syrian Imad Ahmed Jomaa who is linked to Al-Nusra Front," a security source said. He did not specify how many army checkpoints had been surrounded or identify the gunmen.

Officials: Clashes, bombing kill 17 Iraq soldiers Posted: 02 Aug 2014 07:53 AM PDT BAGHDAD (AP) — Authorities in Iraq say clashes and a suicide bombing have killed 17 soldiers in areas around the capital, Baghdad.

British Airways to keep flying over Iraq Posted: 02 Aug 2014 06:23 AM PDT Flagship carrier British Airways said on Saturday it would keep flying over Iraq, despite decisions taken by several rivals to stop doing so following the downing of Flight MH17 in Ukraine. "We fly over Iraq because we consider it safe -â if we thought Iraq was unsafe we would not fly over Iraq," Willie Walsh, chief executive of BA parent group International Airlines Group, wrote in the Financial Times. The risks of overflying combat zones has come into focus following the deaths of 298 people on board the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 after it was shot down above rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine last month.

Tribesmen force jihadis out of Syrian villages Posted: 02 Aug 2014 06:18 AM PDT BEIRUT (AP) — Tribesmen have risen up against the extremist Islamic State group in eastern Syria, forcing it to withdraw from three villages after heavy clashes that killed more than a dozen people, activists said Saturday.

Iraqi kidnappers set to release Turkish hostages Posted: 02 Aug 2014 04:22 AM PDT Islamist militants who kidnapped 49 Turks at a Turkish consulate in northern Iraq in June will likely free them in the next day or two, Turkey's Defence Minister Ismet Yilmaz said Saturday. "We are pursuing contacts with all parties in Iraq. They (the hostages) may come back tomorrow or the day after tomorrow," Yilmaz said, quoted by the Dogan news agency. Yilmaz said Ankara had opted for dialogue with the hostage-takers after ruling out any military operaton that could endanger the hostages.

Nusra chief in Syria's Idlib 'killed in attack' Posted: 02 Aug 2014 04:10 AM PDT A local chief of Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Al-Nusra Front has died in an apparent assassination after a bomb went off in his car, a monitor said Saturday. "Nusra's emir in Idlib (province), Yaacub al-Omar, was killed overnight when a bomb went off in his car near his house in the Khan al-Subul area," the Syria Observatory for Human Rights said. Omar, a Syrian in his forties, took over as local chief in April after his predecessor, Abu Mohammed al-Ansari, was killed by the jihadist Islamic State group. Despite both having their roots in Al-Qaeda, Nusra and the Islamic State -- formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant -- have been in conflict since the beginning of 2014.

Jihadists kill 14 Iraq Kurds in battle over dam, oil facility Posted: 02 Aug 2014 02:38 AM PDT Arbil (Iraq) (AFP) - Kurdish troops fought off a jihadist attack on an oil facility and a dam near the Iraqi city of Mosul but lost 14 of their number in intense combat, Kurdish sources said Saturday.

NATO must respond to Russia: Cameron Posted: 02 Aug 2014 01:38 AM PDT NATO must rethink its long-term relationship with Russia and strengthen the alliance's ability to respond quickly to any threat, Prime Minister David Cameron said Saturday. NATO needs to sustain a "robust" defensive presence in eastern Europe, Cameron wrote in a letter to the alliance's Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, and the 27 other NATO country leaders. With six weeks to go before Britain hosts the NATO summit in Newport, south Wales, Cameron said he wanted to use the meeting to agree a tougher policy towards Moscow, which would send a message that NATO member states would not be intimidated.

Today in History Posted: 01 Aug 2014 09:00 PM PDT Today is Saturday, August 2, the 214th day of 2014. There are 151 days left in the year.

Pentagon Official: The Facts Are In, And Obama’s Policy Is A Direct Danger To The United States Posted: 01 Aug 2014 07:48 PM PDT Joseph Miller is the pen name for a ranking Department of Defense official with a background in U.S. special operations and combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. The report is in, and the review of the president's foreign policy is clear: If there is not an immediate course-reversal, the United States is in serious danger. In 2013, the United States Institute for Peace, "a congressionally-created, independent, nonpartisan institution whose mission is to prevent, mitigate, and resolve violent conflicts around the world," was asked to assist the National Defense Panel with reviewing the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). The National Defense Panel is a congressional-mandated bipartisan commission that's co-chairs were appointed by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.

U.S. struggles in Middle East, with fewer allies and less influence Posted: 01 Aug 2014 05:23 PM PDT By Arshad Mohammed WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S failure to secure a firm ceasefire in the Gaza Strip despite two weeks of intense diplomacy reflects new regional dynamics in which the world's most powerful actor has diminished influence and fewer allies.     When Secretary of State John Kerry left Washington on July 21 on a mission to try to halt the latest Israeli-Palestinian war, more than 400 Palestinians had been killed, mostly civilians, along with 20 Israelis, 18 of them soldiers.     Nearly two weeks later, after Kerry's extensive face-to-face diplomacy in Cairo, Jerusalem, Ramallah, Tel Aviv and Paris and scores of telephone calls, the death tolls have tripled, two ceasefires have collapsed and the violence rages. Israel declared a 72-hour Gaza ceasefire over on Friday within hours of its taking effect, saying that Hamas militants breached the truce soon after it began and apparently captured one Israeli officer while killing two others. Renewed Israeli shelling killed more than 70 Palestinians and wounded some 220, hospital officials said, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Hamas and other militant groups they would "bear the consequences of their actions." Beyond the animosity of the two sides - neither of which seem close to achieving its aims - Washington's diplomatic challenge has been made more complex by the erosion of its standing in the Middle East.

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