Iraq on Thursday banned unauthorized flights and ordered all military camps and munitions warehouses to be moved outside Iraqi cities following a massive explosion at a munitions depot southwest of Baghdad that killed one civilian and wounded 13 earlier this week.
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The exact cause of Monday night's explosion at the al-Saqr military base is still unknown. The blast shook the Iraqi capital and sent explosives and mortar shells shooting into the sky, damaging nearby homes and terrifying residents who ran into the streets with their cellphones. Black smoke billowed over the city for hours afterward.

The federal police base houses a weapons depot belonging to a militia group under the umbrella of the mainly Iran-backed militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces. The state-sanctioned PMF militias have fought alongside Iraq’s regular armed forces against the Islamic State group.

​Some officials blamed the explosion at the base, also known as Falcon Camp, on faulty storage that caused overheating amid typically high temperatures in Baghdad. But the blast has also given rise to a host of theories, including that Israel may have conducted an airstrike.

Baghdad's top diplomat says presence of Western forces raises tensions in the region adding Gulf states can secure it.

​Iraq has rejected any Israeli participation in a naval force to protect shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, at the heart of tensions with Iran. 

Iraq "rejects any participation of forces of the Zionist entity in any military force to secure passage of ships in the Arabian Gulf", Foreign Minister Mohammed Ali al-Hakim wrote on social media on Monday.

"Together, the Gulf states can secure the passage of ships," he said.

He added that "Iraq will work to lower tensions in our region through calm negotiations", while "the presence of Western forces in the region would raise tensions".

The Trump administration has zealously applied various forms of sanctions and restrictions on individuals, organizations and countries, including attempting to change Iranian regime behavior on nuclear policy by designating the Quds Force and targeting countries that are insufficiently committed to combating human trafficking.

​Many of these approaches are seen as heavy handed, counterproductive or of dubious influence, but with the imposition of targeted penalties against Iraqi human rights abusers as authorized by the Magnitsky Act, the United States may have opened up a key avenue to tip the Iraqi government toward being more politically responsive.

The United States has always struggled to translate power into influence within the Iraqi political system. Despite the U.S. role in establishing it, the inherent corruption of what is essentially an ethno-sectarian spoils system (muhassasa) has defied U.S. attempts to check malignant actors working within it. The U.S. weakness in this regard has had regional implications.

For years, the United States has worked at a disadvantage when competing with Iranian influence. Put simply, while Iran has very little to offer Iraq as a nation (save some electricity and gas), it has a great deal to offer individual Iraqis. If the Iranians approve of an Iraqi’s project or approach, they can give him (or occasionally, her) money, a network and political protection. Conversely, while the United States has had much to offer Iraq (including access to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, trade deals, technical capacity, airpower, and high-end military training and equipment), it has had nothing of real value to offer individual Iraqis, save a pat on the back and perhaps some assistance with visas—neither of much use in the hardball environment of Iraqi politics.

Those Arrested Have a Right to Speedy and Fair Trails

​Several members of Iraq’s parliament and the province’s deputy governor visited prisons near Mosul, Iraq, calling what they found a “humanitarian catastrophe.” This happened two days after Human Rights Watch released research detailing the horrible conditions of the prisons, which hold terrorism suspects.

Immediately after our report release, local authorities claimed Human Rights Watch’s research was “fallacious.” But the government’s tone has since changed. One parliamentarian admitted that “what Human Rights Watch reported was small relative to the actual catastrophe inside the prisons of Nineveh.”

Nongovernmental organizations working on these issues have said that Human Rights Watch’s research has made their work easier. Human Rights Watch has also been told that the report release has positively supported their work and has sparked serious conversations in Baghdad about addressing prison conditions.

Human Rights Watch documented extreme overcrowding, inhumane conditions, and ill-treatment at three Nineveh pretrial detention facilities. The detainees have no space to lie down or sit comfortably and have no mattresses because there is no room for them in the cells. Lawyers cannot visit their clients, because, among other reasons, there is no space for meetings.

Militia forces, which the state argues act under its direction, have used their “anti-ISIS” mandate to control important networks and strategic roads and refineries.

​Military operations led by Iran-backed Popular Mobilisation Forces in northern Iraq have ended but a new chapter in the history of the umbrella group of militias begins.

The operations, deemed a “success” by Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) media, were said to have driven out Islamic State (ISIS) operatives along Iraqi-Syrian border.

As another victory was claimed, the existing mandate of the PMF could extend beyond the battle and political field.

The remains of up to thirty-four bodies (male) were discovered by Ahwazi farmers in an open field of the rural hinterland of Farhan Khobor, nearby Susa. on Monday 15 July, 2019.

In an effort to excavate the site, bones were uncovered by local residents, alongside personal items — engraved dog tags, identification cards, photographs, weapons, blood-stained tatters of uniform and perforated helmets — belonging to Iraqi army soldiers (deployed either with 1st mechanised infantry or 9th armoured divisions) in the context of the eight year Iraq-Iran war.

37 years on, POWs fate uncovered 

Using photographic and video evidence presented below, FRB was able to geolocate the site of the mass grave. The bodies of military personnel were found 30 kilometers west of Susa. The surrounding area is referred to by locals as ‘El Ruqabiyyeh’ that, one resident explained, “was a point of entry for the Iraqi army.”

The nearest village to where the discovery was made, as FRB can confirm, that the bones excavated were buried mid way between two villages, Farhan Khabour, and Susa— the site of a former ancient city, located in the lower Zagros Mountains, approximately 250 km east of the Tigris River.

Human Rights Watch slams Iraqi government for doing little to provide safe drinking water in the southern region.

​One year on from Basra's health crisis, which saw 118,000 people hospitalised due to stomach pains and skin rashes blamed on poor water quality, the Iraqi government has done little to ensure safe drinking water for the southern region of four million people, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The international rights group on Monday outlined the multiple, complex factors that led to last summer's crisis in a new report, titled Basra is Thirsty: Iraq's Failure to Manage the Water Crisis.

The primary water source for Basra is the Shatt al-Arab river and its freshwater canals, though for decades water infrastructure has been neglected and laws against dumping waste into the river have not been enforced, HRW said.

The former partner in Iraq for Unaoil, a Monaco-based oil and gas consultancy, has pleaded guilty to five counts of bribery in the first conviction in a three-year criminal investigation by Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO).

Basil Al Jarah, 70, pleaded guilty on July 15 to conspiring to give corrupt payments in connection with the award of contracts to supply and install single point moorings and oil pipelines in southern Iraq, the SFO said.
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Al Jarah’s conviction, which comes six months before three other defendants in the case face a criminal trial in London, was announced after reporting restrictions were lifted in a pre-trial court hearing on Friday, the SFO said.

​Ziad Akle, Unaoil’s former territory manager for Iraq and Stephen Whiteley and Paul Bond, who worked for Dutch-based oil and gas services company SBM (Offshore) (SBMO.AS), have pleaded not guilty and face a London jury in January.

“These revelations show that the U.K. government saw the coming of the first Gulf war ... as an opportunity for arms companies to profit from the death and destruction,” Joe Lo said.

A set of recently declassified documents released by the National Archives show the U.S. was not the only nation to take advantage of Iraq’s two-day invasion of Kuwait in 1990, revealing the U.K. became the world’s second largest arms dealer as a result.

​Almost 10 years to date since the report was written, the highly confidential briefings which date back to the 1990 U.S.-led coalition invasion of Iraq, showed the U.K. rushing to sell arms to Gulf states, meeting the demand for ammunition and rapidly boosting weapons sales.

A memo from Alan Clark, defense procurement minister to U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, stated he believed the U.K. and its allies should view Saddam Hussein’s invasion as an “unparalleled opportunity” for the Defense Export Services Organization.

Iraq has always played a defining role in the destiny of the Middle East, but its sovereignty is being threatened by its all-powerful neighbour and the US.

With such a storied and fabled history, Iraq has long been viewed as a land that possesses inherent worth and value. Whether that value was utilised by the people who inhabit the land or whether it was exploited by a multitude of different empires, Iraq, as it's called today, has always played a central and defining role in the destiny of the Middle East.

In more recent years, however, it would appear that Iraq’s own destiny has been reduced to little more than becoming the plaything of regional and global powers, its policies haphazardly put together with no clear indication as to how it advances the country’s interests.
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The only clear thing is that Iraqis themselves rarely see any benefit to their leaders’ decisions, which always appear to be geared towards either pleasing Iran or appeasing the United States.