Middle Orient

Kurdish peshmerga forces took control of production facilities at two northern Iraqi oil fields Friday, replacing Arab workers with Kurdish personnel. The national oil ministry in Baghdad condemned the takeover at the Kirkuk and Bai Hassan fields and called on the Kurds to withdraw immediately to avoid “dire consequences.”

Syrian activists say rebels have attacked the village of the country’s defense minister and captured parts of it. Activists say the attack began Friday with a suicide bombing that targeted a checkpoint in the village of Rahjan in the central province of Hama.

Iraq’s new parliament postponed its next session for five weeks on Monday, extending the country’s political paralysis in the face of a Sunni Islamist insurgency which claimed the life of an army general on the northwestern outskirts of Baghdad. Citing the inability of political camps to reach “understanding and agreement” …

ISIS-led insurgents are creating an Islamic state out of the vast strips of land they control in Iraq and Syria, the militants have announced. Its territory will extend from Syria’s Aleppo, once the economic heart of the country, to the Diyala province in the east of Iraq. The Islamic State for Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), which from now is to call itself simply “Islamic …

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be his party’s presidential candidate at the vote this August, ruling AKP officials say. The widely expected announcement comes briefly after President Abdullah Gul declared he was not intending to stand for a second term in office, amid speculations he might try to do so and could put Erdogan’s ambitions …

Drawn by prospect of multi-billion-dollar deals NEW DELHI, June 29, (RTRS): Western governments are rushing to visit India’s new Prime Minister Narendra Modi, drawn by the prospect of multi-billion-dollar deals as the government prepares to open the nascent defence industry to foreign investment. Senior politicians from France, the United States …

BAGHDAD, June 28, (RTRS): Iraqi government forces backed by helicopter gunships began an offensive on Saturday to retake the northern city of Tikrit from Sunni Islamist militants while party leaders pursued talks that could end Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s divisive rule. Politicians in Baghdad and world powers warn that unless …

Al-Shabaab warned of attacks during fasting month MOGADISHU, June 29, (RTRS): Islamist rebels shot dead three members of Somalia’s security forces in the capital on Sunday, police and witnesses said on the first day of Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month when insurgents had warned they would stage attacks. The government …

Dozens of worshippers killed MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, June 29, (AFP): Suspected Boko Haram Islamists attacked a series of churches on Sunday near Chibok, the northeast Nigeria town where more than 200 teenage girls were kidnapped in April, with dozens feared dead, witnesses said. Residents said the gunmen riding on motorcycles opened …

‘Islam is religion of unity’ RIYADH, June 29, (Agencies): Saudi King Abdullah on Sunday sharply criticised religious extremists, vowing not to let “a handful of terrorists… terrify Muslims”, in a speech marking the start of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan. Islam is “religion of unity, fraternity and mutual …