RAF carries out first British drone attacks against Isis in Iraq
UK Ministry of Defence says unmanned Reaper fires Hellfire missile against Islamic State targets. British forces conducted their first drone attacks on Islamic State (Isis) militants in Iraq...
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RAF carries out first British drone attacks against Isis in Iraq - Video
Un Carro armato MBT passa su una IED in Iraq - Tank on a bomb
An overview of the World Military videos on the navy, air force, army. From aircraft carriers to fighter planes, passing through tanks, infantry and special forces, to the attack submarines....
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Un Carro armato MBT passa su una IED in Iraq - Tank on a bomb - Video
AF release footage Iraq Strikes ISIL
AF release footage Iraq Strikes ISIL This footage is NOT intended to be violent or glorify violence in any way. We are sharing this footage STRICTLY for the purposes of news reporting and educating.
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AF release footage Iraq Strikes ISIL - Video
Iraqs oil ministry can sue the Kurdistan regional government for possession of 1 million barrels of crude that have waited in a tanker circling off the Texas coast for more than five months, a U.S. judge said.
U.S. District Judge Gray Miller in Houston rejected the Kurds claims of sovereign immunity and said the regional governments plans to sell its crude in the U.S. gave him authority to hear the lawsuit.
Miller had previously ruled he had no authority to hear Iraqs dispute because the alleged misappropriation of the oil took place in Kurdistan, outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts. After the Iraqis reworked their claim, Miller agreed the Kurds involvement in the U.S. oil market triggered a legal exception that properly placed the dispute over the cargo in his court.
The activity complained of is the taking of Iraqi oil for sale, there are specific allegations that it has been sold in the U.S., and the sale of oil in the U.S. creates a direct effect in the U.S., Miller said in a ruling yesterday.
In December, the Iraqi central government and the Kurdistan regional government reached a production-sharing accord that let the Kurds export up to 550,000 barrels of oil a day from northern Iraq, with 250,000 barrels of that amount placed under the control of the central government. That accord in Baghdad didnt address ownership of Kurdish shipments previously exported, according to court papers, leaving unresolved the dispute over the tanker off the Texas coast.
Miller said he wasnt making a final determination on ownership of the cargo. He also said he wont consider Iraqs bid to seize the oil or hold proceeds from its sale under court supervision unless and until the cargo is brought into U.S. waters. He said Iraq could make its request when that happens.
The two governments have been sparring over the tanker since late July, when Iraq persuaded a federal magistrate judge in Houston to issue a warrant letting federal agents seize the crude and store it ashore at Iraqi expense if the ship entered U.S. territorial waters.
The tanker has been circling a navigational buoy about 60 miles off Galveston, Texas, since then and was still there as of 4:35 a.m. local time today, according to Bloomberg tracking data.
The price of oil has fallen by almost half during the time the ship has waited offshore. The Kurds had initially hoped to sell the cargo for about $100 million.
Miller said hell apply Texas state laws covering stolen property to the case, which will also require him to interpret Iraqs constitution and related case law.
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Iraq Allowed to Sue Kurds Over Texas Oil Tanker in U.S.
Winston Churchill understood the significance of the black stuff seeping to the surface in the Kurdish plains of Mesopotamia when he included the region within Iraq as the British forged the nation in the 1920s.
In doing so, Churchill, the colonial secretary at the time, set in train almost a century of bickering between the Iraqi government and its Kurdish enclave over the areas estimated 45 billion barrels of crude.
While their latest dispute was temporarily resolved last month to help finance the struggle against Islamic State, the accord has not addressed differences between administrations in Baghdad and Erbil that include the future of Kirkuk, northern Iraqs main oil hub. The Iraqi government started pumping crude from Kirkuk via Kurdish pipes that bypass militant-held territory to Turkey, Al-Mada Press reported Jan. 1.
The need to finance military operations has brought together the Iraqi government and the Kurds, said Hussein Allawi, a Baghdad-based oil analyst. But this is a temporary agreement that does not resolve fundamental differences.
Under the deal, the Kurdistan Regional Government will share revenue from the 250,000 barrels a day that it had been unilaterally shipping from its territory to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. Iraq says it intends to increase exports from Kirkuk, which Kurdish Peshmerga forces are defending from Islamic State attack, by 300,000 barrels a day during 2015. The central government in Baghdad has also resumed budget payments to Kurdish authorities, including a one-time payment of $1 billion to cover expenses of the Peshmerga.
While the Iraqi central government is set to bank increased revenue, its oil exports to Turkey now depend on pipelines traversing the Kurdish region.
Should Baghdad try to withhold budget cash again we hold a key to their oil exports, Nechirvan Barzani, the prime minister of the KRG, said Dec. 3, according to his governments website. The agreement also gives the KRGs oil sales through its pipelines tacit approval by Baghdad.
The shift in the balance of power explains why the pact may not last long.
Independent oil sales from the KRG are not going to be tolerated by Baghdad in the long term and eventually this deal will collapse, said Christian Sinclair, assistant director of Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Arizona.
The accord does not resolve long-standing points of friction between Baghdad and Erbil, that also include the KRGs ambitions for independence, Sinclair said.
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Iraq Oil Deal Evokes Churchill in Islamic State Battle