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UNMASKINGGlobal oil and energy consumption have been falling since the third quarter under the impact of exceptionally high prices and a slowing economy. But the impact was initially masked by concerns about the planned introduction of the price cap on Russia's crude and refined products exports. Traders anticipated the price cap and Russia's response would cut production by more than the economic slowdown cut consumption. LESSONS FROM 2014The recent slump in oil prices shares some, though not all, characteristics with the slump occurring in the third quarter of 2014 ("A brief history of the oil crash", Reuters, January 2015). It is also probable recent hedge fund liquidation has exaggerated the recent fall in oil prices creating some headroom for a short-term rebound; positions are now unusually low.

☆ An assassination, a feud and the fight for power in Iraq's Kurdistan
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Amina Ismail | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +10 min

TENSE STANDOFFAfter Rasoul's death, the KDP-dominated Regional Security Council accused a PUK security agency of the killing. It detained six men it identified as operatives involved and issued arrest warrants for another four senior PUK security officials, according to security council statement a week after the attack. Long-simmering mistrust between the two sides had already deepened this year due to a wave of defections from PUK security agencies. The senior PUK official told Reuters there had been eight. "It could've easily turned ugly," the senior PUK official said.

☆ Islamic State leader Quraishi blew himself up after being surrounded -sources
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Suleiman Al-Khalidi | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

AMMAN, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Islamic State (IS) militant leader Abu al-Hassan al-Hashemi al-Quraishi, who was killed in mid-October in Syria, blew himself up after he and his aides were surrounded by local fighters in the town of Jasem, fighters involved in the clash told Reuters. The province was brought under the control of the Syrian army following Russian-brokered reconciliation agreements in 2018 that gave control of southern Syria back to Damascus. Islamic State has selected Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Quraishi as its new leader, a spokesman for the group said in a recording. Islamic State emerged from the chaos of the civil war in neighbouring Iraq and took over vast swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014. Former IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared an Islamic caliphate from a mosque in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul that year and proclaimed himself caliph of all Muslims.

He said Abu al-Hassan al-Hashemi al-Quraishi was killed while "fighting enemies of God", without elaborating. The spokesman urged Islamic State members in all countries to pledge allegiance to the new leader, adding that "he is one of the loyal sons of the (Islamic) state". The White House welcomed the news that Abu al-Hassan al-Hashemi al-Quraishi had been killed, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters. Islamic State announced Abu al-Hassan al-Hashemi al-Quraishi as its new leader in March after the death of predecessor Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi. Islamic State emerged from the chaos of the civil war in neighbouring Iraq and took over vast swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014.

☆ Iraq and Iran Agree to Tighten Border Security Amid Unrest
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Benoit Faucon | Ghassan Adnan | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani said Tuesday that his country would tighten security cooperation with Iran, after Tehran strengthened its military presence along its western border to prevent the infiltration of Kurdish groups based in northern Iraq. “We will not allow the use of Iraqi lands to threaten Iran‘s security,” Mr. Sudani said in a joint press conference with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran. The two leaders agreed to form liaison committees on border security, Iranian and Iraqi state media reported.

Howitzers fired daily from Turkey have struck Kurdish YPG targets for a week, while warplanes have carried out airstrikes. The escalation comes after a deadly bomb attack in Istanbul two weeks ago that Ankara blamed on the YPG militia. President Tayyip Erdogan has said Turkey would launch a land operation when convenient to secure its southern border. Erdogan said back in May that Turkey would soon launch a military operation against the YPG in Syria, but such an operation did not materialise at that time. The defence ministry said on Saturday three Turkish soldiers had been killed in northern Iraq, where the military has been conducting an operation against the PKK since April.

☆ Prehistoric humans were surprisingly creative cooks
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Katie Hunt | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —Stone Age cooks were surprisingly sophisticated, combining an array of ingredients and using different techniques to prepare and flavor their meals, analysis of some the earliest charred food remains has suggested. (From left) Breadlike food was found in Franchthi Cave in Greece; pulse-rich food with wild peas was uncovered in Shanidar Cave in northern Iraq. The charred food remains from Franchthi Cave dated from 12,000 years ago, when it was also occupied by hunter-gatherer Homo sapiens. Much research on prehistoric diets has focused on whether early humans were predominantly meat eaters, but Kabukcu said it was clear they weren’t just chomping on woolly mammoth steaks. A Neanderthal hearth was unearthed at Shanidar Cave, where charred plant remains were also found.

☆ Iran Attacks Kurdish Groups in Iraq That It Blames for Unrest
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-21 | by ( Benoit Faucon | Ghassan Adnan | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The missile strikes are part of Iran’s campaign to retaliate against outside groups and foreign governments that it has blamed for supporting unrest at home. Iran launched drones and missiles against Kurdish groups in northern Iraq on Monday, the second time in a week, as the Islamic Republic intensifies efforts to suppress a two-month-old protest movement inside its bordersIran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, said Monday it targeted Kurdish military bases in Erbil and Sulaimaniyah, alleging factions there are fomenting unrest in Iran.

☆ Turkish air strikes target Kurdish militants in Syria and Iraq
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-19 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

ISTANBUL, Nov 20 (Reuters) - The Turkish defence ministry said early on Sunday it carried out air strikes on outlawed Kurdish militant bases in northern Syria and northern Iraq, which it said were used to carry out attacks on Turkey. The strikes targeted bases of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which Turkey says is a wing of the PKK, the ministry added in a statement. Turkey said on Tuesday it plans to pursue targets in northern Syria after it completes a cross-border operation against the PKK militants in Iraq, following a deadly bomb last weekend in Istanbul. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said late Saturday that Turkish aircraft shelled two villages populated with internally displaced people in northern Syria. Turkey has conducted three incursions so far into northern Syria against the YPG militia.

The attack that killed six people on a busy Istanbul street on Sunday has brought national security back on the political agenda. With Turkey quick to accuse Syria-based Kurdish militants for the latest attack, analysts say Erdogan may now press for another cross-border campaign into northern Syria after three such incursions since 2016. Were Sunday's attack followed by more, Peker expected outcomes including a rapid escalation of "counter-terrorism operations, particularly against the PKK and the YPG". The YPG, espousing the same ideology as the PKK, has established control over swathes of northern Syria since war began there in 2011. In a November re-run - following that spate of violence and two major Islamic State bomb attacks - AK Party won comfortably.

☆ Iran Attacks Northern Iraq, Targeting Kurdish Groups for Unrest at Home
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( David S. Cloud | Laurence Norman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Iranian missiles and drones struck the headquarters of Kurdish groups near the cities of Erbil and Sulaimaniyah in Iraq on Monday. Iran attacked Kurdish groups in northern Iraq with drones and missiles on Monday after weeks of warnings from Tehran that it would target foreign actors it accuses of orchestrating a two-month-long antigovernment protest movement at home. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, targeted bases of Kurdish groups near the cities of Erbil and Sulaimaniyah, leaving at least two people dead and nine injured, according to Iraqi Kurdistan’s regional government. It was the second major attack in the region since the protests began, though the IRGC has fired artillery at less populated areas on multiple occasions.

☆ Iraqi parliament to vote Thursday on new president amid divisions
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr speaks during news conference in Najaf, Iraq this screen grab taken from a live video August 30, 2022. Under a power-sharing system designed to avoid sectarian conflict, Iraq's president is a Kurd, its prime minister a Shi'ite and its parliament speaker a Sunni. Disagreement among the main Kurdish parties that run the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq has prevented the selection of a president. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party has held the presidency since 2003. A lawmaker from the Kurdistan Democratic Party said no agreement with Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party has been reached yet.

☆ Iran Attacks Northern Iraq With Missiles and Drones, Killing at Least 13
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-29 | by ( David S. Cloud | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Iran attacked northern Iraq on Wednesday with more than 40 ballistic missiles and armed drones, one of which was shot down by a U.S. warplane as it headed toward the city of Erbil where American troops are based, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials. The strikes were by far the largest and most deadly in recent days by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has carried out repeated bombardments of Kurdish areas in northern Iraq since last week, after publicly blaming Iranian Kurdish separatist groups based there for fomenting unrest that has swept across Iran.

☆ As protests rage at home, Iran launches drone and missile attack in Iraq’s Kurdistan region
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Dan De Luce | Dan De Luce Is A Reporter For The Nbc News Investigative Unit. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

As Iran struggles to quell a wave of street protests at home, the regime launched a drone and missile attack on an Iranian-Kurdish opposition group in neighboring Iraq on Wednesday, Kurdish and U.S. officials said. The Iranian attack left at least nine people dead and 32 wounded, Kurdish authorities in the area said. Smoke billows following an Iranian cross-border attack in the area of Zargwez, about 9 miles from Sulaimaniyah, Iraq, on Sept. 28, 2022. The U.S. condemned the Iranian attack as an assault on Iraq’s sovereignty and accused the regime of trying to divert attention from domestic turmoil. No U.S. troops were wounded or killed in the Iranian attack.

☆ Nine reported killed as Iran Revolutionary Guards target dissident sites in Iraq
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Smoke rises from the Iraqi Kurdistan headquarters of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran, after Iran's Revolutionary Guards' strike on the outskirts of Kirkuk, Iraq September 28, 2022. REUTERS/Ako RasheedDUBAI, SULAIMANIYA, Iraq Sept 28 (Reuters) - Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Wednesday they fired missiles and drones at militant targets in the Kurdish region of neighbouring northern Iraq, where an official said nine people were killed. A senior member of Komala, an exiled Iranian Kurdish opposition party, told Reuters that several of their offices were struck as well. The Revolutionary Guards, Iran's elite military and security force, said after the attacks that they would continue targeting what it called terrorists in the region. Protests erupted in Iran this month over the death of a young Iranian Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, in police custody.

☆ Iran's hardline president to address nation as unrest spreads
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Parisa Hafezi | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Iranian human rights groups have reported a higher toll. read moreIranian authorities have accused armed Iranian Kurdish dissidents of igniting the unrest, particularly in the northwest where most of Iran's over 10 million Kurds live. Early on Wednesday, a video showed protesters in Tehran chanting "Mullahs get lost!" The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has called on Iran's clerical rulers to "fully respect the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, peaceful assembly and association". human rights office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said on Tuesday reports indicated "hundreds have also been arrested, including human rights defenders, lawyers, civil society activists and at least 18 journalists".

☆ Iran president says Amini's death is 'tragic incident', but 'chaos' unacceptable
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Parisa Hafezi | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Amini's death two weeks ago has sparked anti-government protests across Iran, with protesters often calling for the end of the Islamic clerical establishment's more than four decades in power. "We all are saddened by this tragic incident ... (However)Chaos is unacceptable," Raisi said in an interview with state TV, while protests continued around the country. Raisi, who had ordered an investigation into Amini's death, said "forensics will present report on her death in the coming days". Raisi backed Iran's security forces, saying "they sacrifice their lives to secure the country". Iran has blamed Kurdish dissidents for the unrest as well as what it called "thugs" linked to "foreign enemies."

☆ Iran says U.S. trying to violate sovereignty over unrest, warns of response
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Pro-government peoples rally against the recent protest gatherings in Iran, after the Friday prayer ceremony in Tehran, Iran September 23, 2022. Iran has been rocked by nationwide demonstrations sparked by the death of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, after she was detained by morality police enforcing the Islamic Republic's strict restrictions on women's dress. Iran said the United States was supporting rioters and seeking to destablise the Islamic Republic. Iran has blamed armed Iranian Kurdish dissidents of involvement in ongoing unrest in the country, particularly in the northwest where most of Iran's up to 10 million Kurds live. A main Iranian teachers union, in a statement posted on social media on Sunday, called for teachers and students to stage the first national strike since the unrest began, on Monday and Wednesday.

☆ Iran Shells Kurds in Iraq as Unrest Mounts Over Mahsa Amini’s Death
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-24 | by ( Benoit Faucon | Aresu Eqbali | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

TEHRAN—Iran shelled militant opposition groups in the semiautonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq on Saturday, according to state media, an attack that comes during nationwide protests over the death of a young Kurdish woman in police custody. The Revolutionary Guard, Iran’s security force, launched the artillery attacks against “anti-Iran terrorist groups” in the Iraqi Kurdistan region Saturday, the Revolutionary Guard said in a statement carried by the state news agency, IRNA.

☆ Iran Shells Kurds in Northern Iraq as Unrest Mounts at Home
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-24 | by ( Benoit Faucon | Aresu Eqbali | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

A protest following the death of Mahsa Amini in front of the U.N. office in Erbil, Iraq. TEHRAN—Iran shelled militant opposition groups in the semiautonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq on Saturday, according to state media, an attack that comes during nationwide protests over the death of a young Kurdish woman in police custody that have rocked the country. The Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s security force, launched the artillery attacks against “anti-Iran terrorist groups” in the Iraqi Kurdistan region on Saturday, the Guards said in a statement carried by the state news agency, IRNA.

☆ Iran Guards launch artillery attack on militants in Iraqi Kurdistan
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-24 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterDUBAI, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Iran's Revolutionary Guards launched an artillery attack on anti-Iranian militant bases in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq on Saturday, Iranian state television reported. "Headquarters of anti-Iranian terrorists" based in northern Iraq were targeted by the Guards, state TV said, in reference to Kurdish rebel groups based there. Iran has blamed the armed Iranian Kurdish dissidents of involvement in ongoing unrest in the country, particularly in the northwest where most of Iran's up to 10 million Kurds live. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterReporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by David ClarkeOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ How the Turkish-made TB2 drone gave Ukraine an edge against Russia
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-18 | by ( Maya Carlin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The TB2 drone has gotten worldwide attention for its role in the Nagorno-Karabakh war and now in Ukraine. Without the TB2, the Ukraine might lose the defensive edge it holds over Russia. What makes the TB2 drone special? Bayraktar TB2 UAVs is seen during the test flight at the military base located in Hmelnitski, Ukraine on March 20, 2019. A Bayraktar TB2 drone.

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