US Secretary of State John Kerry headed to the Middle East Sunday seeking to overcome the sectarian divide in Iraq where Sunni militants seized more ground in an offensive that could rip the country apart.
Secretary of State John Kerry this weekend plunges back into the tumultuous Middle East seeking to overcome sectarian divisions in Iraq amid US frustration with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Tehran, YJC.-- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday that the country will spare no effort to protect the holy shrines of Shiite imams in the neighboring Iraq against possible terrorist attacks.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has dismissed suggestions that his country could descend into the same chaos as Iraq when US-led troops pull out and leave the national police and army to impose security.
Militants attacked Iraq's main oil refinery early Wednesday as they pressed an offensive that has seen them capture swathes of territory, a manager and a refinery employee said.
Tehran, YJC. Reza Akhlaghi says recent ISIS movements in Iraq are supported by Saudi Arabia as a way for the country to loosen Iran's grip over the region.
The Islamist militant onslaught in Iraq raises the spectre of a sectarian conflict spilling across the embattled nation's borders, UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned on Tuesday.
Militants have seized most of a key Shiite majority town in northern Iraq, a government official said on Tuesday, in fighting that has killed dozens of civilians and combatants.
Militants gained ground on Monday in a battle for a strategic Shiite enclave in northern Iraq that provides a corridor to Syria, officials and residents said.
The Obama administration is mulling possible discussions with Iran over the mounting security crisis in Iraq, a senior official said on Sunday, in what would mark a major step in U.S. engagement with its longtime adversary.
Tehran, YJC. The construction of a pipeline that will carry natural gas from Iran to Iraq will be completed by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (started March 21, 2013), says an official.
Kurdish forces are in control of one the two official border crossings with Syria, which they seized after Iraqi forces withdrew, a senior Kurdish security official said on Sunday.
Iran warned on Sunday that "any foreign military intervention in Iraq" would only complicate the crisis, after the US said it was deploying a warship in the Gulf.
Tehran, YJC. -- The growing wave of terrorism in Iraq comes in reaction to the failure of certain groups in the recent general elections in the country, said the Iranian president Hassan Rouhani.
President Barack Obama vowed that the United States would not be "dragged back'' into military action in Iraq as long as leaders in Baghdad refuse to reform a political system that has left the county vulnerable to a fast-moving Islamic insurgency.