Iraq Archives - Page 6 of 8 - Voice of the Cape

PM al-Abadi: Fire at ballot box warehouse plot to harm Iraq

Haider al-Abadi, Iraq's prime minister, has said the burning of a warehouse in Baghdad where ballot boxes from last month's disputed parliamentary elections were kept was part of a plot to sabotage the country's democratic process. His comments on Sunday were the most high-profile indication that the fire in the Iraqi capital was deliberate. "Burning election warehouses ... is a plot to harm the nation and its democracy," Abadi, whose […]

11 June 2018

International News

Iraq orders recount of all 11 million votes from May 12 election

Iraq's parliament has ordered a full recount of the country's recent parliamentary election that resulted in a shock victory for Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr. The country's outgoing 328-seat parliament voted in favour of a manual recount of all 11 million ballots from the May 12 poll in response to charges of electoral fraud. MPs also sacked a nine-member independent electoral commission that oversaw the process and replaced the body with […]

7 June 2018

International News

‘World failing Yazidi women forced into sex slavery’

The world is failing Yazidi women forced into sex slavery by Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, with 3,000 still unaccounted for, according to the head of a charity dedicated to helping survivors recover from their horrific experiences. Murad Ismael said many Yazidi women and girls had been brainwashed or killed in captivity, while those who had managed to escape after years of enslavement and rape were left struggling […]

5 June 2018

International News

Dozens of bodies found in Syrian mass grave in former IS ‘capital’

Dozens of bodies, including those of militants and civilians, have been found in a mass grave in the former Islamic State (IS) group stronghold of Raqqa in Syria, a local official said on Saturday. The former de facto "capital" of the group in northern Syria, Raqqa saw the militants ousted by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces last October. Almost 50 bodies had already been recovered from the mass grave, which […]

22 April 2018

International News

Iraqi forces launch offensive to recapture last town in Islamic State control

Iraqi forces launched an offensive on Saturday to capture Rawa, the last remaining town under Islamic-State control, leaving the group’s self-proclaimed caliphate on the verge of complete defeat. The capture of the town would mark the end of Islamic State’s era of territorial rule over a so-called caliphate that it proclaimed in 2014 across vast swathes of Iraq and Syria. Syria’s army declared victory over the militants on Thursday, after […]

11 November 2017

International News

Abadi tells Tillerson: PMF is hope of Iraq and region

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has rejected a call by Washington for Iranian-backed fighters to leave Iraq at a meeting with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Baghdad. Tillerson made the unannounced visit to the Iraqi capital on Monday came amid heightened tensions between the two countries over the role of the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), Shia paramilitaries that helped defeat ISIL in Iraq. The top US diplomat had […]

24 October 2017

International News

Iraq refuses talks with Kurds about referendum results

The Iraqi government will not hold talks with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) about the results of Monday's "unconstitutional" referendum on independence in northern Iraq, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said. "We are not ready to discuss or have a dialogue about the results of the referendum because it is unconstitutional," Abadi said in a speech broadcast on state TV on Monday night. "Most of the problems of the [Kurdish] […]

26 September 2017

International News

Iraqi Kurds vote in independence referendum

People in Iraq's autonomous region of Kurdistan are voting in an independence referendum, amid rising tensions and international opposition. Polls opened at 05:00 GMT with balloting also taking place in the disputed areas between the northern city of Erbil and the capital Baghdad, as well as the oil-rich province of Kirkuk, which is ethnically mixed. The central government in Baghdad, which strongly opposes the referendum, sought control of the region's […]

25 September 2017

International News

Abadi declares ‘total victory’ over ISIL in Mosul

Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has formally declared victory over the Islamic State of the Iraq and Levant (ISIL) in Mosul. "I announce from here the end and the failure and the collapse of the terrorist state of falsehood and terrorism which the terrorist Daesh announced from Mosul," Abadi said on Monday evening, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State. Abadi, wearing a black military uniform and flanked by commanders […]

11 July 2017

Iraq

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