Thread: Archive Latest News - Think Tank - 01/01/08 - 14/04/08

Sadr blames occupation forces for aide’s assassination

Shiite Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Friday blamed the occupation forces for the death of his aide Sayyid Riad al-Nouri, urging his followers to be patient, demanding the government to open a probe on the incident.

The Shiite cleric released a statement received by Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq (VOI), in which al-Sadr promises he won't "forget this precious blood" but he urges his followers to "be patient."

Al-Sadr accuses "the hands of the occupiers and their tails" of being responsible for the attack.

Friday's statement comes hours after Riad al-Nouri was gunned down as he drove home after attending prayers. Al-Nouri was the director of al-Sadr's office in Najaf.

Earlier today, Hayder al-Jabiri, from Sadr's office in Najaf, told the VOI "Riad al-Nouri, one of the key assistants of Muqtada al-Sadr, was shot in front of his home in al-Furat neighborhood, northern Najaf, while returning from the Friday prayers."

"Unidentified gunmen in a car that carried no number plate opened fire at Nouri, who received a bullet in the head," Jabiri said.

Ahmed Deibal, the official spokesman for the civil administration in Najaf, 180 km southwest of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, said a curfew was imposed as of Friday afternoon until further notice over the slain leading Sadrist bloc member.

"Najaf will be under an indefinite curfew as of Friday afternoon for security reasons," Deibal told VOI.

For his part, Iraqi Premier Nouri al-Maliki condemned the assassination of al-Nouri, noting that it is an attempt to kill the moderate religious and political figures.

Meanwhile, al-Sadr's office in Baghdad announced three days of mourning following the assassination of Riad al-Nouri.

Aswat Aliraq

President Talabani Receives Sadr Movement Delegation

The Iraqi President, Jalal Talabani, Received yesterday a delegation from the Sadr Movement including Baha al-Aaraji and Dr. Qusay Abdul Wahab the Iraqi Parliament members.

They talked about the necessity to calm the situation and to resort to dialogue and political means in solving the disputed issues. Talabani stressed the risks of fighting and quarrel; he also emphasized the sovereignty of law and order.

The Sadr delegation appreciated Talabani’s efforts in settling the disputes and consolidating the Iraqi National Unity.

The meeting was also attended by the head of Kurdistan Parliamentary Bloc,Dr. Fuad Massum, the Iraqi Minister of Water Resources, Dr. Abdul Latif Rasheed and Iraqi lawmaker, Firyad Rawanduzi.

PUKmedia :: English - President Talabani Receives Sadr Movement Delegation

Bush Says no Plans to Attack Iran: Interview

PUKmedia 12-04-2008 11:08:51

US President George W. Bush said Friday he has no intention of attacking Iran, in an interview in which he also gave some advice to his successor on how to deal with the Islamic Republic.

Questioned during an interview with ABC television whether his intention was to not attack Iran, Bush replied: "Exactly" although he refused to rule out the use of force altogether.

"I have always said all options need to be on the table, but my first effort is to solve this issue diplomatically," he said from his Texas ranch.

Bush said he was not planning an attack, adding: "I'm chuckling, because, you know, from my perch, my perspective, these rumors happen all the time ... I wouldn't say they're amusing. It's part of the job, I guess."

The president accuses Iran of seeking nuclear weapons and arming and funding groups fighting US forces in Iraq.

And he made clear in the interview that he would act to protect Americans or Iraqis from Iranian actions in neighboring Iraq.

"The message to the Iranians is: we will bring you to justice if you continue to try to infiltrate, send your agents or send surrogates to bring harm to our troops and/or the Iraqi citizens," he said.

Asked to elaborate on this "justice," Bush replied: "It means capture or kill, is what that means."

With less than ten months until he leaves office, the president also offered some advice to his successor in the White House, including thinly veiled criticism of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

The Illinois senator has said he would open a dialogue with Iran if elected president, while Bush has said any talks must take place in a multilateral forum and on condition that Tehran suspend its sensitive nuclear activities.

"If you send the wrong signals as the president to the Iranians, they may pocket that signal, become even more difficult to deal with," Bush said.

PUKmedia :: English - Bush Says no Plans to Attack Iran: Interview

Baghdad…KRG Delegation Meets Iraq’s PM

The KRG Delegation Headed by Kurdistan Region's PM Nichervan Barzani met Iraqi Prime Minister Dr. Nuri al-Maliki, today in Baghdad.

A well-informed source said that they discussed the relations between the KRG and the Federal Government in Baghdad. Ways of finding the solutions for the unresolved issues like the implementation of Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution concerning normalizing the situation in Kirkuk and the disputed areas , the oil contracts signed by the KRG, Oil-Gaz Draft and the budget of the Region’s Guard.

Barzani and al-Maliki will hold a joint press conference to shed light on the meeting’s content.

Maliki drafts in 2 extra brigades to gain traction after Basra battle – The Times

After Operation Saulat al-Forsan (Knights' Assault), launched by the Iraqi government against armed groups in the oil hub city of Basra, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki drafted in two extra brigades from Ramadi and Karbala provinces in a bid to gain traction for the Iraqi army, the British newspaper The Times said in an article on Saturday.

In Basra the signs of the feared militia are slowly receding. For the first time in years alcohol vendors are selling beer close to army checkpoints, and ringtones praising cleric Muqtada al-Sadr are vanishing from mobile phones. Music shops are once again selling pop tunes instead of the recorded lectures of Shiite ayatollahs.

But, as the city cautiously comes back to life after an offensive by Iraqi troops backed by hundreds of US soldiers, there is a lingering resentment towards the British Army.

Many here blame the British for allowing the Mahdi Army and other militias to impose a long reign of terror on the once cosmopolitan city.

The battle for Basra is still not over. An American airstrike yesterday killed another six men who had been attacking Iraqi troops from the militia's hold-out areas, which the Army has so far been unable to penetrate.

Support is, though, slowly building for Maliki, who led his troops into Basra, 590 km south of Baghdad, having given his U.S. allies barely more than a weekend's notice of the impending attack. The British were informed only a day before, prompting Lieutenant-General Peter Wall, the deputy chief of staff, to describe the whole operation as "hastily planned".

"After the Iraqi Army set up checkpoints and the militia disappeared from the streets, I decided to start selling alcohol," Luay Hanna, a 46-year-old liquor store owner, said. His shop was burnt down by fundamentalist militiamen three years ago, and many of his colleagues were butchered.
"Many of the alcohol sellers reopened their shops. We always sell near the Iraqi army checkpoints to be safe - not like before when the militia killed and kidnapped people right in front of the police's eyes."

Qaldoon Nuri, who runs a CD shop, was forced to stop selling pop songs for fear of the zealous gunmen four years ago. One of his friends was murdered for refusing to heed the ban. He was forced to sell religious songs, many of them praising al-Sadr, as well as lectures on tenets of the Shiite faith.

"The militia forced us to follow a fanatic Islamic code. They forced us to put up pictures of the imams," he said. "Now after the militias have been defeated by government forces, we started to put some songs on CD and are looking for what's new in the arts - what people actually like."

One of his neighbors, Saleh Muhammad, has been badgered in his phone shop by customers demanding new pop ringtones and pictures of female singers to download. "I think it's freedom from the fear," he said.

The British have been unable to bask in even the partial success of the battle. Having abruptly decided to take on the militias after years of appeasing them, Maliki's first venture on to the battlefield was plagued by desertions from his security forces and stronger than expected resistance. Outfought, he called on US forces for support rather than the 4,100 British troops who have barely left their base at Basra airfield.

When the British commanding officer visited the Prime Minister's field headquarters during the fight he was left waiting outside by the Iraqi leader. The humiliating snub was believed to be payback for an alleged deal with the militias by British forces, who released several of their jailed leaders and agreed not to attack them if the British base was not hit.

"I think the British troops were the main reason that militias became very powerful," complained Inas Abed Ali, a teacher. "They didn't fight them properly and, when they found themselves losing in the city, they moved out to the airport and chose to negotiate with the militias and criminal groups as if they were legal."

"The British Army had no role in Basra," Rahman Hadi, a coffee shop owner, said. "We haven't seen any achievements by them in the streets of Basra. I don't know why their troops didn't respond to the acts of these militias for long years, after seeing all the suffering that Basra people went through."

Even senior Iraqi officers admitted that the hands-off British approach to policing the city had given the militias free rein. Brigadier Alaa al-Ittabi, from the infantry command of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, said that the British Army "was sometimes negatively lenient, like the way they dealt with the militias". Hadi was placing his hopes on the new Iraqi forces. "The presence of these foreign troops adds nothing to the situation, and even the Iraqi troops trained by the British Army proved to be infiltrated by the militias and to be corrupt."

General David Petraeus, the U.S. commander here, said that the Iraqi Army's initial performance in Basra had been disappointing and gave warning that the battle could last months. Brigadier al-Ittabi attributed the mass desertions at the outset to the deployment of local forces who were unwilling to fight their neighbors and whose families were vulnerable to militia threats.

Sources in Basra said that the Iraqi troops started to gain traction only after Maliki drafted in two extra brigades, one from the Sunni city of Ramadi and the other from Karbala, where the al-Mahdi Army's rival militia, the Badr Brigades - loyal to the main Shiite party in Maliki's government - holds sway.

Some observers have described the battle in Basra, which has also sparked fighting in the al-Mahdi Army's main stronghold of Sadr City, eastern Baghdad, as a power struggle between the anti-U.S. Sadrists, with strong grassroots support among poor Shia, and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, which runs the Badr militia and has long co-operated with the U.S. military.

That theory was lent weight yesterday when unidentified gunmen shot down Sadr's brother- in-law, who ran his office in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, where the Badr forces are strong.

Aswat Aliraq

ISX to sign a contract with company specialized in investors’ services

Officials in Iraq Stock Exchange, ISX, said that the market is about to make a deal with a company specialized in investors services in order to publish information and data regarding electronic exchange in the market.

A source in the market clarified that this step would encourage investment operations on the local and foreign levels in addition it would increase investment awareness among citizens in Iraq market.

ISX to sign a contract with company specialized in investors’ services | Economics News | Alsumaria Iraqi Satellite TV Network

Shame it doesn't mention which company.

Decision of disbanding militias welcomed in Iraq

The decision of disbanding militias related to parties without exception was welcomed by politicians in Iraq who stressed the necessity of purging Interior and Defense ministries.

Decision of disbanding militias welcomed in Iraq | Iraq News | Alsumaria Iraqi Satellite TV Network

De Mistura to initiate proposal on Iraq

UN Chief’s special envoy to Iraq Steffan De Mistura announced that the international organization will initiate a proposal next month to solve conflicts of several disputed regions in Iraq which could be an example to follow in Kirkuk.

On the other hand, De Mistura urged NATO alliance to increase training of Iraqi police in order to help stabilize the country and double the current number of soldiers in training which is estimated at 1,500. He called as well on the European Union to pursue financial support to UN operations in Iraq and use its political influence to push Baghdad’s Government to ratify oil law.

De Mistura to initiate proposal on Iraq | Iraq News | Alsumaria Iraqi Satellite TV Network

Iraq bets on a new law for developing its enormous oil wealth

Iraq is one of the main oil states in the region and the world as well as being one of the founders of OPEC; the first oil activity started in it early last century, and began the first commercial production in 1929 from Kirkuk field and then other fields followed until oil was nationalized oil in Iraq on the first of June / 1972. Then a series of tensions and wars rolled and surrounded the Iraqi policy, especially the economic embargo in 1990, in addition to three devastating wars which led to an unprecedented destruction of the oil and gas industry in Iraq. Iraqi fixed oil reserve is estimated at about 115 billion barrels, making it the second largest oil reservoir known in the world, and there are almost certain other estimates indicate that Iraq reserves are much more than that. Iraq today may need at least three years to return to the previous level of production in 1980 of about $ 5 .3 million barrels a day and investments estimated at tens of billions of dollars for the rehabilitating the infrastructure of the old installations. For these reasons, Iraqi oil exports now do not exceed two million barrels per day at best, at a time when it should be producing no less than ten million barrels daily. Therefore, the only hope for Iraq now is to issue a new oil and gas law to develop this enormous hydrocarbon wealth as soon as possible to alleviate the burden of the Iraqi people who continue suffering for more than 35 years.

The following are the most important events in the oil and gas sector during the week in the Gulf region:

Emirates

Al-Hilal Oil Company has sponsored the participation of three major Iraqi universities in the "Jet Energy 2008" conference which was held in London on 26 - 28 last March; the company ensured the attendance of representatives of: Baghdad University, the University of Basrah and the American University in Iraq at Sulaymaniya. The annual exhibition and conference of "Jet Energy" attracts more than 400 participants from 35 countries representing national and international major oil and gas companies, governments, training and rehabilitation institutions and universities; it is held annually in order to consolidate relations between these various institutions to support the training and education programs in the energy sector on the international level.

The sponsorship of Al-Hilal Oil Company for the participation of the three major Iraqi universities in this important international event was for paving the way for Iraq's educational institutions to establish long-term cooperative relations with international training and education institutions. This is the first participation of Iraq in this annual specialist International Conference, with a focus on the areas of petroleum engineering and topics on economy and business.

On the other, Dana Gas announced the implementation of a massive program for exploration and development in Egypt includes drilling 19 wells, 15 of which exploratory wells and 4 other developmental wells at a total cost of $170 million, using 5 drilling platforms. The wells located within the concession areas of the company under participation contract in the production sector of Kum Ambu in Upper Egypt and the Nile Delta sectors; the company drilled an exploratory well and another developmental one in the first sector, three developmental wells and 14 exploratory wells in the second sector where 5 wells was targeting the layer of Seedi Salim which is a significant technical challenge because reaching that layer requires drilling to a depth of 4000 meters.

Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi National Energy Company, (Energy), entered into a letter of intent with "Oasis International Energy" for cooperation in electricity and water projects in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. It is noteworthy that the Government of Abu Dhabi owns 75% of Energy Company, while the Oasis Company, located in Abu Dhabi, is working for the establishment of independent electricity and water stations.

On its part, the company Abar is working to complete a contract of selling Pearl Unit for oil prospect and production to Mubadala Company for Development at $833.3 million by the end of April, which had been signed earlier; shareholders approved earlier last month on the sale of 100% of the shares of Pearl for Energy to Mubadala Company for Development.

Iraq

The Russian Company Stroy Transjaz entered into a bilateral protocol, signed in Jordan, with the North Oil Company to reform a pipeline to export oil to the Syrian port of Banias on the Mediterranean.

The second largest oil refinery in Iraq resumed operations in Basrah after two days of interruption due to electricity blackouts, according to sources in the South Oil Company; the first refining unit, which produces 75 thousand barrels per day of refined oil, resumed its normal operations but the other two units did not resume work yet. According to the Ministry of Energy, the production of the oil refining complex reaches 160 thousand barrels of oil per day for local market.

http://www.iraqdirectory.com/DisplayNews.aspx?id=5870

UPDATE : Iraq Official:To Announce Cos Qualified For Oil Bids Monday

Iraq will announce Monday those international companies qualified to bid for tenders to develop one of the world's largest oil fields, an Iraqi oil ministry official said Friday.

"Names of qualified companies will be announced on Monday at 12 o'clock local time (0900 GMT)," the official told Dow Jones Newswires by telephone from Baghdad.

The ministry in February said that some 70 international companies had filed registration documentation to the ministry to take part in a future tender to develop Iraq's oil fields with proven oil reserves of 115 billion barrels, the world third-largest. Oil Minster Hussein al-Shahristani said some 115 companies sent documents.

The ministry had asked international oil companies to register with the newly set up Contracts and Licensing Office of the Ministry early January and set Monday Feb. 18 as the final day for receiving registration documentation. It said only registered firms can bid for tenders to develop Iraq's vast oil reserves, the third-largest in the world.

The ministry has been studying and checking the documents since the Feb. 18 deadline, the official said.

Major oil companies such as BP, Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Repsol, Total SA, ConocoPhillips and Italy's Edison SpA are among firms that have said they sent or were intending to submit documentation.

Companies that have signed deals with the Kurdish semiautonomous rule are likely to be excluded from the Iraqi oil ministry's list to take part in Iraq's oil fields development, Iraqi oil officials have said.

Kurdish authorities have signed contracts, mostly production-sharing agreements, with around 20 international companies to develop oil and gas fields in their region. These deals have angered the federal oil ministry in Baghdad, which has declared them illegal and said foreign companies who signed these contracts would be blacklisted.

Iraq is currently tendering technical support agreements, or TSAs, that will help increase production in the country's largest oil fields by 500,000 barrels a day. Iraq is currently producing around 2.4 million barrels a day.

Iraq is also planning to issue the first round of tenders to develop some of its prized oil fields during the second quarter of this year, according to al- Shahristani.

UPDATE:Iraq Official:To Announce Cos Qualified For Oil Bids Monday