Iraq

World News

Iraq's Abu Ghraib Is Back In The News, Now As A Front-Line Town

10:23am October 24, 2014

by Alice Fordham

A town west of Baghdad and home to a notorious prison, Abu Ghraib is where Iraq troops are bracing for a possible attacks by Islamic State militants. Many local residents feel caught in the middle.

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World News

Former Blackwater Security Guards Found Guilty In Iraq Shootings

6:28pm October 22, 2014

by Bruce Auster

A federal jury found four former security guards with the company Blackwater guilty in connection with the shooting of dozens of Iraqi citizens in 2007 at a Baghdad traffic circle. That shooting revealed the leeway given outside contractors and became a symbol of the U.S. intervention in Iraq.

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Pentagon Says It Will Investigate Stray Arms Drop Over Syria

2:55pm October 22, 2014

by Scott Neuman

The self-declared Islamic State has released a video purporting to show its fighters rifling through a crate of grenades airdropped by a U.S. military cargo plane.

Former Blackwater Worldwide guard Nicholas Slatten leaves federal court in Washington in June. Slatten on Wednesday was found guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of 14 Iraqi civilians in 2007.

Blackwater Guards Found Guilty In 2007 Shootings In Iraq

2:42pm October 22, 2014

by Scott Neuman

One guard was found guilty of first-degree murder and three others of voluntary manslaughter in a 2007 incident in Baghdad in which 14 civilians were killed.

Peshmerga look out from a front-line outpost — a few sandbags, soldiers, and grenades perched on the brow of a hill — to the eastern Iraqi town of Jalula. The Kurdish fighters are grappling with how to combat changing ISIS tactics.

World News

Ambushes, Mines And Booby Traps: ISIS Militants Change Tack

7:01am October 22, 2014

by Alice Fordham

In northern Iraq, Kurdish fighters have won back territory from the so-called Islamic State only to lose it again. ISIS is using a range of explosives, inflicting heavy Kurdish casualties.

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Aza Betwata (left) and his brother Mirwan (center) left Holland to join the Kurdish peshmerga fighting against ISIS militants in northern Iraq. Though the brothers come from a family of fighters, Aza had just two days of training — his brother must show

World News

Kurds Leave Life In Europe To Fight ISIS In Their Iraqi Homeland

9:33am October 21, 2014

by Alice Fordham

Until August, 24-year-old Aza Betwata was in Holland, enjoying beef and cabbage and studying to be a social worker. Now, he's among the hundreds of exiled Kurds who have returned and taken up arms.

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A family passes through Maktab Khaled in northern Iraq, the last Kurdish checkpoint before they make their way to Kirkuk. ISIS-controlled territory lies less than a mile away.

World News

The Artificial Boundary That Divides Iraq

6:03pm October 20, 2014

by Leila Fadel

A checkpoint near Kirkuk marks the line between Kurdish-controlled territory and the world of Islamic State extremists. Some 5,000 civilians stream across daily, lives and families divided.

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National

ISIS Threat Is 'Extremely Worrying' Says Counter-Insurgency Expert

11:44am October 20, 2014

A decade after the U.S. took control of Fallujah, America is at war again. NPR's Rachel Martin talks with former Lt. Col. John Nagl, whose counter-insurgency manual helped shape U.S. strategy in Iraq.

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Turkish Kurds watch the Syrian town of Kobani from a hill near the Mursitpinar border crossing on Monday.

World News

Turkey Says It's Helping Iraqi Kurds Join Fight For Kobani

8:30am October 20, 2014

by Scott Neuman

The remarks by the country's foreign minister could signal a shift in Ankara's largely neutral stance on the conflict at its doorstep.

Free Syrian Army fighters sit in a house on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria, in June 2012. The U.S. is planning to train and arm the rebels, who have been outgunned on the battlefield.

Syria's 'Moderate Rebels' Say They Are Willing, But Need Weapons

10:26pm October 19, 2014

by Peter Kenyon

The Free Syrian Army has been outgunned in the country's multi-sided civil war. But they say they have fighting experience, and if the U.S. provides arms and training they could play a key role.

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