The council elections are expected to strengthen pro-Iran Shiite Muslim groups as their main rival, populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, boycotts the vote. People in Iraq headed to the polls on Monday in the first provincial council elections since 2013.The elections are being held under beefed-up security.   The Shiite Muslim alliance is likely to strengthen its power amid an ongoing boycott by populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who is the alliance's main political rival. Polling is taking place in 15 provinces of Iraq, leaving out three that are autonomous Kurdistan regions.   Some 17 million people are eligible to cast their votes at a total of 7,166 polling stations set up across Iraq. Polling began in Baghdad, Kirkuk and Basra at 7:00 a.m. local time (0400 GMT), as was broadcast by Iraqi state television. The polling will continue until 6:00 p.m. local time. Why are the elections important for Iraq's future? More than 6,000 candidates are running in the elections for just 285 seats in the provincial councils. The elections are seen as an opportunity to redeem democracy in Iraq and pave the way for parliamentary elections scheduled for 2025. They also present a test for Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani's government, which was established over a year ago.   The elections are likely to cement the hold of the ruling Coordination Framework coalition, an Iran-aligned bloc that includes Shiite Islamist parties with factions of Hashed al-Shaabi. Who are the main contenders in Iraq's elections? The influential Shiite cleric al-Sadr has joined the opposition against the Shiite alliance and is boycotting the local elections. A vocal critic of the United States and Iran, he said the elections will only help establish the dominance of a corrupt political class.   Many members of the Shiite alliance are running on several lists, with former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki forming his own list. The top Sunni Muslim leaders in the country, ousted parliament speaker Mohammed Halbousi and business mogul Khamees Khanjar, are running together.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stopped in the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Sunday evening, in an unannounced visit as part of his ongoing Middle East tour. Blinken held talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani, during his first visit to Iraq as a top diplomat. The Secretary of State said his country was working hard to ensure the conflict in Gaza does not spill over in the region. He added that the aid delivered to the besieged strip since the start of the conflict is "grossly insufficient." Blinken added that the US was intensely focused on the release of the hostages held by Hamas. Ahead of the visit on Saturday, Iran-backed group Kataib Hezbollah, which is based in Iraq, warned that Blinken's trip would be met with an "unprecedented escalation."

Turkey hit several- Kurdish targets in northern Iraq on Sunday, the Turkish Defense Ministry announced. It said that it had "destroyed" some 20 targets associated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), including caves, shelters and depots. The ministry said that a large number of PKK operatives were "neutralized" in the strikes, which it referred to as an "air operation." "Turkish army planes bombed parts... of the Bradost region at around 9:20 pm (1820 GMT), as well as the village of Badran," Ihsan Chelabi, the mayor of the Iraqi Kurdish town of Sidakan, told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency. The PKK, a left-wing Kurdish militant group, is listed as a terror group by Turkey, the EU and the US. The Kurds number around 35 million and predominantly inhabit parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. In recent years, Ankara has increasingly targeted Kurdish militants in Iraq and Syria. In April, Turkey arrested 110 people in an operation targeting people with alleged links to the PKK. Strikes follow suicide bombing in Turkey The strikes come several hours after a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device near an entrance to the Turkish Interior Ministry, wounding two police officers. A second man was killed in a shootout with police. The PKK claimed responsibility for Sunday's suicide bombing. Hours after the blast, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed that "terrorists" would never achieve their aims. The attack took place hours before parliament was set to reopen. In its autumn session, the Turkish parliament is to consider Sweden's bid to join the NATO military alliance, of which Turkey is a member.

The Iraqi politician who introduced the bill into parliament is absolutely certain: Any behavior that deviates from heterosexuality is a danger to his country. This is why, in mid-August, Raad al-Maliki introduced a bill that would amend Iraq's "Law on Combatting Prostitution" from 1988 to make same-sex relations a crime, alongside any kind of expression of transgender identity. Should al-Maliki's bill be passed, same-sex relationships in Iraq would be punishable by death or long prison terms. The bill also pertains to transgender women and sets a penalty of up to three years in jail or a fine of up to €7,100 ($7,700) for anyone who "imitates a woman." The latter is defined as wearing makeup or women's clothing or "appearing as a woman" in public. The timing of this bill's introduction is no coincidence, said Rasha Younes, a senior LGBTQ rights researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW). It's connected to general discontent and public protests in Iraq. "It comes at a time when the Iraqi government has struggled to deliver on key demands made by protesters, leading to a further breakdown in the social contract between rulers and ruled," she told DW. "The weaponization of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and legislation to mobilize a largely uninformed public against a marginalized group is a state strategy." According to Human Rights Watch, which has seen a copy of the bill, the Iraqi draft law describes same-sex relationships as "sexual perversion" and also punishes what it describes as the promotion of homosexuality with up to seven years of jail time and financial fines of up to €10,600 ($11,500). The draft law does not explain what is meant by the "promotion of homosexuality." New law adds to culture of impunity Until now, Iraq has not had any laws explicitly against same-sex relationships, and authorities have tended to use morality laws to harass the LGBTQ community. "The introduction of the anti-LGBT bill follows months of hostile rhetoric against sexual and gender minorities by Iraqi officials, as well as government crackdowns on human rights groups," HRW said in its report on the law. "Armed groups and individuals have for decades launched attacks against people perceived as LGBTQ to 'discipline' any non-normativity expressed in Iraq," Younes explained. "The arbitrary nature of the attacks and the fact that they occur in broad daylight in public testify to the climate of impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators, who know that they can literally get away with it." Given all this, the new law is just adding "fuel to the fire," Younes continued. "It is an insult to individuals who are already trying to protect themselves from the armed groups that are hunting them down on a large scale." Amir Ashour, head of one of the country's only LGBTQ rights organizations, IraQueer, feels similarly. If the bill is passed, those attacking locals they perceive as homosexuals will feel even more free to do as they wish. "This law would be against Iraqi and international laws which guarantee equal protection for all citizens regardless of their sexual orientation," Ashour said.                                                                       

A fire and explosions at a substation in southern Iraq briefly led to a complete power grid shutdown on Saturday, and caused longer-term disturbances to supply in central and southern parts of the country.  The outage comes amid peak summer demand, with scorching temperatures across most of the country. Weather forecasts expect peak temperatures near 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) consistently in the coming days.  It also took place on the Shiite religious holiday of Ashoura amid many public gatherings.  Electricity is a sensitive issue in Iraq — a country with vast oil reserves but a dilapidated power grid incapable of meeting peak demand. Outages lasting hours are commonplace every summer.  Protests about the patchy supply are by no means unheard of — the most recent took place this month.  What happened and where?  A fire broke out at the Al-Bkir substation in Basra and resulted in the separation of transmission lines linking southern and central regions, leading to a complete shutdown of the electrical system in the area, Iraq's Ministry of Electricity said in a statement. It said the fire was accidental.  "The power grid experienced a total shutdown on Saturday at 12:40 p.m. (0940 GMT/UTC) due to a fire that affected a transmission substation in Basra province," the ministry said.  Ministry spokesman Ahmed Moussa told the AFP news agency that at some point the incident affected main supply to "all of Iraq."  "Speedy repairs are under way ... to gradually restart the power plants and transmission lines," the ministry said.  Iraq can't meet peak summer demand in searing heat Rolling power cuts hit Iraq each summer and can last up to 10 hours a day.  Many households subscribe to neighborhood generators for emergency supply, if they can afford it. But the generators often don't provide sufficient power to operate high-energy equipment like air conditioning units, highly sought after in temperatures nearing 50 degrees Celsius.  Peak summer demand reaches more than 32,000 megawatts a day in Iraq. The country is trying to expand its capacity, and according to the electricity ministry, this year it reached a new high of 26,000 megawatts a day. 

Iran struck back at the United States for the killing of a top Iranian general early Wednesday, firing a series of ballistic missiles at two Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops in a major escalation that brought the two longtime foes closer to war. Iranian state TV said it was in revenge for the U.S. killing of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, whose death last week in an American drone strike near Baghdad prompted angry calls to avenge his slaying. There was no immediate word on injuries. Soleimani's killing and the strikes by Iran came as tensions have been rising steadily across the Mideast after President Donald Trump's decision to unilaterally withdraw America from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers. They also marked the first time in recent years that Washington and Tehran have attacked each other directly rather than through proxies in the region. It raised the chances of open conflict erupting between the two enemies, which have been at odds since Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran initially announced only one strike, but U.S. officials confirmed both. U.S. defense officials were at the White House, likely to discuss options with Trump, who launched the strike on Soleimani while facing an upcoming impeachment trial in the Senate, Iran's Revolutionary Guard warned the U.S. and its regional allies against retaliating over the missile attack against the Ain al-Asad air base in Iraq's western Anbar province. The Guard issued the warning via a statement carried by Iran's state-run IRNA news agency. "We are warning all American allies, who gave their bases to its terrorist army, that any territory that is the starting point of aggressive acts against Iran will be targeted," The Guard said. It also threatened Israel. After the strikes, a former Iranian nuclear negotiator posted a picture of the Islamic Republic's flag on Twitter, appearing to mimic Trump who posted an American flag following the killing of Soleimani and others Friday in a drone strike in Baghdad. Ain al-Asad air base was first used by American forces after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, and later saw American troops stationed there amid the fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. It houses about 1,500 U.S. and coalition forces. Two Iraqi security officials said at least one of the missiles appeared to have struck a plane at the base, igniting a fire. It was not immediately clear whether it was an Iraqi or U.S. jet. There were no immediate reports of casualties from the attacks, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they had no permission to brief journalists. About 70 Norwegian troops also were on the air base but no injuries were reported, Brynjar Stordal, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Armed Forces told The Associated Press. Trump visited the sprawling Ain al-Asad air base, about 100 miles or 60 kilometers west of Baghdad, in December 2018, making his first presidential visit to troops in the region. He did not meet with any Iraqi officials at the time, and his visit inflamed sensitivities about the continued presence of U.S. forces in Iraq. Vice President Mike Pence also has visited the base. Iranian state TV said the Guard's aerospace division that controls Iran's missile program launched the attack, which it said was part of an operation dubbed "Martyr Soleimani." Iran said it would release more information later. The U.S. also acknowledged another missile attack on a base in Irbil in Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region. "As we evaluate the situation and our response, we will take all necessary measures to protect and defend U.S. personnel, partners and allies in the region," said Jonathan Hoffman, an assistant to the U.S. defense secretary. Wednesday's revenge attack happened a mere few hours after crowds in Iran mourned Soleimani at his funeral. It also came the U.S. continued to reinforce its own positions in the region and warned of an unspecified threat to shipping from Iran in the region's waterways, crucial routes for global energy supplies. U.S. embassies and consulates from Asia to Africa and Europe issued security alerts for Americans. The FAA also warned of a "potential for miscalculation or mis-identification" for civilian aircraft in the Persian Gulf amid in an emergency flight restriction. A stampede broke out Tuesday at Soleimani's funeral for a top Iranian general slain in a U.S. airstrike, and at least 56 people were killed and more than 200 were injured as thousands thronged the procession, Iranian news reports said. Tuesday's deadly stampede took place in Soleimani's hometown of Kerman as his coffin was being borne through the city in southeastern Iran, said Pirhossein Koulivand, head of Iran's emergency medical services. There was no information about what set off the crush in the packed streets, and online videos showed only its aftermath: people lying apparently lifeless, their faces covered by clothing, emergency crews performing CPR on the fallen, and onlookers wailing and crying out to God. "Unfortunately as a result of the stampede, some of our compatriots have been injured and some have been killed during the funeral processions," Koulivand said, and state TV quoted him as saying that 56 had died and 213 had been injured. Soleimani's burial was delayed, with no new time given, because of concerns about the huge crowd at the cemetery, the semi-official ISNA news agency said. A procession in Tehran on Monday drew over 1 million people in the Iranian capital, crowding both main avenues and side streets in Tehran.  Such mass crowds can prove dangerous. A smaller stampede at the 1989 funeral for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini killed at least eight people and injured hundreds. Hossein Salami, Soleimani's successor as leader of the Revolutionary Guard, addressed a crowd of supporters gathered at the coffin in a central square in Kernan. He vowed to avenge Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike Friday near Baghdad's airport. "We tell our enemies that we will retaliate but if they take another action we will set ablaze the places that they like and are passionate about," Salami said. "Death to Israel!" the crowd shouted in response, referring to one of Iran's longtime regional foes. Salami praised Soleimani's work, describing him as essential to backing Palestinian groups, Yemen's Houthi rebels and Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria. As a martyr, Soleimani represented an even greater threat to Iran's enemies, Salami said. Soleimani will ultimately be laid to rest between the graves of Enayatollah Talebizadeh and Mohammad Hossein Yousef Elahi, two former Guard comrades killed in Iran's 1980s war with Iraq. They died in Operation Dawn 8, in which Soleimani also took part. It was a 1986 amphibious assault that cut Iraq off from the Persian Gulf and led to the end of the war that killed 1 million. The funeral processions in major cities over three days have been an unprecedented honor for Soleimani, seen by Iranians as a national hero for his work leading the Guard's expeditionary Quds Force.  The U.S. blames him for killing U.S. troops in Iraq and accused him of plotting new attacks just before he was killed. Soleimani also led forces supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad in that country's civil war, and he also served as the point man for Iranian proxies in countries like Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Assad in Syria on Tuesday amid the tensions between Washington and Tehran. Soleimani's slaying already has led Tehran to abandon the remaining limits of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers as his successor and others vow to take revenge. In Iraq, pro-Iranian factions in parliament have pushed to oust American troops from Iraqi soil following Soleimani's killing. Germany and Canada announced plans to move some of their soldiers in Iraq to neighboring countries. The FAA warning barred U.S. pilots and carriers from flying over areas of Iraqi, Iranian and some Persian Gulf airspace. The region is a major East-West travel hub and home to Emirates airline and Dubai International Airport, the world's busiest for international travel. It earlier issued warnings after Iran shot down a U.S. military surveillance drone last year that saw airlines plan new routes to avoid the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. Maritime Administration warned ships across the Mideast, citing the rising threats. "The Iranian response to this action, if any, is unknown, but there remains the possibility of Iranian action against U.S. maritime interests in the region," it said. Oil tankers were targeted in mine attacks last year that the U.S. blamed on Iran. Tehran denied responsibility, although it did seize oil tankers around the crucial Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of the world's crude oil travels. The U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet said it would work with shippers in the region to minimize any possible threat. The 5th Fleet "has and will continue to provide advice to merchant shipping as appropriate regarding recommended security precautions in light of the heightened tensions and threats in the region," 5th Fleet spokesman Cmdr. Joshua Frey told The Associated Press. Iran's parliament, meanwhile, has passed an urgent bill declaring the U.S. military's command at the Pentagon and those acting on its behalf in Soleimani's killing as "terrorists," subject to Iranian sanctions. The measure appears to be in response to a decision by Trump in April to declare the Revolutionary Guard a "terrorist organization." The U.S. Defense Department used that terror designation to support the strike that killed Soleimani. Source: AP/UNB AH

A US military helicopter has crashed in western Iraq near the border with Syria, according to multiple US defense officials, reports CNN. It was unclear why the aircraft, an HH-60 Pave Hawk, went down, the officials added. They did not rule out ground fire, and they could not confirm how many people had been killed. One official said the helicopter was not on a combat operation but was ferrying troops. Maj. Adrian J. Rankine-Galloway, a Pentagon spokesman, said Thursday night that rescue personnel had been deployed and that the crash, in Anbar Province, near Syria, was under investigation. The officials said the early reports do not indicate hostile fire, but they emphasized they need to determine what happened. The HH-60 is a modified version of the Black Hawk helicopter. It is often flown by the Air Force for medical evacuation missions, and is used by Special Operations Para-rescue specialists. FU  

The Iraqi Minister of Oil on Thursday announced that the oil ministry reopened al-Seniyah Refinery in the province of Salahudin after rehabilitation by Iraqi technical teams, a ministry statement said.  The national teams in the government-owned North Refineries Company (MRC) "managed to rehabilitate the refinery, which was destroyed by Daesh terrorist gangs (Islamic State group) when the group seized some of Salahudin's cities and caused damages to its (oil) installations," the statement quoted its minister Jabbar Luaiby as saying.  The refinery currently is working with capacity of 20,000 barrels per day, Luaiby said.  "This refinery will provide quantities of oil derivatives to cover the needs of the province, whether for the use of citizens or to operate power plants," he said.  The rehabilitation of the refinery is part of the oil ministry's plans to rebuild Salahudin's provincial oil installations, including the refineries, according to the statement.  Al-Seniyah oil refinery and the nearby Iraq's largest refinery of Baiji, some 200 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, were badly damaged by the Islamic State militants when they seized large swathes of territories in northern and western Iraq in June 2014.  After more three years of battles, the Iraqi forces have retaken most of the occupied areas from the terrorist IS group, including the cities of Salahudin province and the country's second largest city Mosul.