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Iraqi forces and a breakaway al-Qaeda group fought for control of a region that’s home to a key oil refinery as the prime minister sought to beat back a guerrilla advance that’s claimed the nation’s second city.
Violence is surging across parts of northern and central Iraq more than a decade after the U.S. invasion and three years since American troops withdrew. There were conflicting reports of who controls Baiji, a town north of Baghdad and home to Iraq’s largest refinery. In Mosul, which fell to fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant yesterday, gunmen entered Turkey’s consulate, the governor of Nineveh, Athil al-Nujaifi, said by phone.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki again pledged swift action to recapture Mosul, signaling plans to bolster Iraq’s regular forces with volunteers. Maliki’s Shiite-led government is increasingly struggling to retain control of Sunni-majority regions, heightening the prospect of a return to sectarian civil war in OPEC’s second-biggest oil producer.
“The threat is very significant. ISIL has huge numbers in terms of manpower and control of weapons,” said Julien Barnes-Dacey, an analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations in London, said by phone. “It has fighting experience from Iraq and the civil war in Syria, and has gained control over large amounts of territory.”
Stocks and bonds fell in both Iraq and Turkey as fighting threatened to further destabilize the region. Turkey’s main stock index dropped 2.8 percent, while the lira fell and bond yields rose, after NTV reported that Turkish special forces were among those captured when the country’s consulate in Mosul was stormed.
Syria War
Iraqi shares fell the most in two years and the yield on the nation’s $2.7 billion of bonds due in January 2028 climbed 51 basis points to 7 percent, the biggest jump on a closing basis since May 1, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
ISIL is among the mostly Sunni groups fighting to topple Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad. It established semi-permanent encampments in desert areas of western Iraq, especially in Anbar and Nineveh provinces, to provide secure bases for its fighters in Syria, the State Department said in an April report. Now it’s showing its strength in Iraq and “will probably succeed in expanding the territory it controls in Iraq’s predominantly Sunni northern provinces” in the next six months, research firm IHS said in an e-mailed report.
Tanks Abandoned
Police in Baiji, the oil center, said they were providing heavy security around the town, and the state-run Iraqi Media Net reported that government troops and tribal fighters had driven away ISIL militants. Earlier, Jabbar Yawer, a spokesman for ethnic Kurdish armed forces in Erbil, had said Baiji district, including refineries, was under the extremists’ control.
In Mosul and surrounding areas, more than 150,000 troops fled their posts as the guerrillas advanced, leaving behind thousands of weapons, including tanks and helicopters, that are now in ISIL possession, Yawer said. Peshmerga forces have fortified their defenses positions to prevent infiltration of extremists and to keep away “the flames of the fire,” Yawer said. Around 500,000 civilians fled the city, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) from the borders with Turkey and Syria, according to the International Organization for Migration.
In a televised speech today, Maliki said ISIL won’t be allowed to stay in Mosul, adding that government forces were much stronger than the militants. Maliki said commanders who fled must be punished.
Fallujah Fall
Lawmakers will likely back Maliki’s call for a partial state of emergency in areas affected by the violence, IMN reported. “It’s imperative to declare a state of emergency in parts of the country,” lawmaker Mustapha Amin told Al-Sabah newspaper, according to IMN.
The increase in sectarian violence recalls the mass killings in the years that followed the U.S. invasion of 2003. Civilian fatalities in Iraq, including police, reached 7,818 last year, exceeding the 6,787 killed in 2008, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq.
ISIL fighters, who gained sway over Fallujah in January, also took control of Sulaiman Bek, a town between Kirkuk and Salahuddin, the al-Mada news agency said. Kurdish armed forces from the semi-autonomous north of Iraq have moved in to bolster security at the Kirkuk oilfields and on the Syrian border, according to Qablan and statements from Iraq’s police.
In Mosul, gunmen drove 4-wheel-drive pickup trucks with machine guns bolted on top and black flags flying above, said Khalid al-Mosuli, a 36-year-old city resident, in a phone interview.
‘City Closed’
“Dead bodies are scattered around western Mosul due to the fighting. The city is empty and most shops are closed,” he added.
The U.S. supports “a strong, coordinated response to push back against this aggression” and is ready to assist Maliki’s government, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in an e-mailed statement. “ISIL is not only a threat to the stability of Iraq, but a threat to the entire region.”
The group’s firepower will be strengthened by the equipment it has access to after seizing army bases in Mosul, cash from the city’s banks, and the release of 2,500 fighters from local jails, Eurasia Group, a New York-based political risk analyst, said in e-mailed comments.
The fighting in Mosul has halted repair work on the main oil pipeline to Turkey, state-run North Oil Co. said. Shipments through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, the target of frequent attacks, have been stopped since March 2. The refinery at Baiji can process 310,000 barrels of oil a day.
Investment Halt
Iraq produced 3.3 million barrels of oil a day in May, making it the second-largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries after Saudi Arabia. An estimated 17 percent of the country’s oil reserves are in the north, including the giant Kirkuk oil field, according to data from the Energy Information Administration.
“Taking over Mosul will likely halt investment in oil and gas in that area,” Paul Sullivan, a Middle East specialist at Georgetown University in Washington, said in e-mailed comments. “Who wants to drop hundreds of millions or billions in a place where ISIL could attack at any moment?”
Still, Iraq’s oil export volumes may not be materially impacted, as there’s no immediate threat to security in the southern provinces that account for the majority of reserves, according to Eurasia Group.
Violence is surging across parts of northern and central Iraq more than a decade after the U.S. invasion and three years since American troops withdrew. There were conflicting reports of who controls Baiji, a town north of Baghdad and home to Iraq’s largest refinery. In Mosul, which fell to fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant yesterday, gunmen entered Turkey’s consulate, the governor of Nineveh, Athil al-Nujaifi, said by phone.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki again pledged swift action to recapture Mosul, signaling plans to bolster Iraq’s regular forces with volunteers. Maliki’s Shiite-led government is increasingly struggling to retain control of Sunni-majority regions, heightening the prospect of a return to sectarian civil war in OPEC’s second-biggest oil producer.
“The threat is very significant. ISIL has huge numbers in terms of manpower and control of weapons,” said Julien Barnes-Dacey, an analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations in London, said by phone. “It has fighting experience from Iraq and the civil war in Syria, and has gained control over large amounts of territory.”
Stocks and bonds fell in both Iraq and Turkey as fighting threatened to further destabilize the region. Turkey’s main stock index dropped 2.8 percent, while the lira fell and bond yields rose, after NTV reported that Turkish special forces were among those captured when the country’s consulate in Mosul was stormed.
Syria War
Iraqi shares fell the most in two years and the yield on the nation’s $2.7 billion of bonds due in January 2028 climbed 51 basis points to 7 percent, the biggest jump on a closing basis since May 1, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
ISIL is among the mostly Sunni groups fighting to topple Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad. It established semi-permanent encampments in desert areas of western Iraq, especially in Anbar and Nineveh provinces, to provide secure bases for its fighters in Syria, the State Department said in an April report. Now it’s showing its strength in Iraq and “will probably succeed in expanding the territory it controls in Iraq’s predominantly Sunni northern provinces” in the next six months, research firm IHS said in an e-mailed report.
Tanks Abandoned
Police in Baiji, the oil center, said they were providing heavy security around the town, and the state-run Iraqi Media Net reported that government troops and tribal fighters had driven away ISIL militants. Earlier, Jabbar Yawer, a spokesman for ethnic Kurdish armed forces in Erbil, had said Baiji district, including refineries, was under the extremists’ control.
In Mosul and surrounding areas, more than 150,000 troops fled their posts as the guerrillas advanced, leaving behind thousands of weapons, including tanks and helicopters, that are now in ISIL possession, Yawer said. Peshmerga forces have fortified their defenses positions to prevent infiltration of extremists and to keep away “the flames of the fire,” Yawer said. Around 500,000 civilians fled the city, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) from the borders with Turkey and Syria, according to the International Organization for Migration.
In a televised speech today, Maliki said ISIL won’t be allowed to stay in Mosul, adding that government forces were much stronger than the militants. Maliki said commanders who fled must be punished.
Fallujah Fall
Lawmakers will likely back Maliki’s call for a partial state of emergency in areas affected by the violence, IMN reported. “It’s imperative to declare a state of emergency in parts of the country,” lawmaker Mustapha Amin told Al-Sabah newspaper, according to IMN.
The increase in sectarian violence recalls the mass killings in the years that followed the U.S. invasion of 2003. Civilian fatalities in Iraq, including police, reached 7,818 last year, exceeding the 6,787 killed in 2008, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq.
ISIL fighters, who gained sway over Fallujah in January, also took control of Sulaiman Bek, a town between Kirkuk and Salahuddin, the al-Mada news agency said. Kurdish armed forces from the semi-autonomous north of Iraq have moved in to bolster security at the Kirkuk oilfields and on the Syrian border, according to Qablan and statements from Iraq’s police.
In Mosul, gunmen drove 4-wheel-drive pickup trucks with machine guns bolted on top and black flags flying above, said Khalid al-Mosuli, a 36-year-old city resident, in a phone interview.
‘City Closed’
“Dead bodies are scattered around western Mosul due to the fighting. The city is empty and most shops are closed,” he added.
The U.S. supports “a strong, coordinated response to push back against this aggression” and is ready to assist Maliki’s government, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in an e-mailed statement. “ISIL is not only a threat to the stability of Iraq, but a threat to the entire region.”
The group’s firepower will be strengthened by the equipment it has access to after seizing army bases in Mosul, cash from the city’s banks, and the release of 2,500 fighters from local jails, Eurasia Group, a New York-based political risk analyst, said in e-mailed comments.
The fighting in Mosul has halted repair work on the main oil pipeline to Turkey, state-run North Oil Co. said. Shipments through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, the target of frequent attacks, have been stopped since March 2. The refinery at Baiji can process 310,000 barrels of oil a day.
Investment Halt
Iraq produced 3.3 million barrels of oil a day in May, making it the second-largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries after Saudi Arabia. An estimated 17 percent of the country’s oil reserves are in the north, including the giant Kirkuk oil field, according to data from the Energy Information Administration.
“Taking over Mosul will likely halt investment in oil and gas in that area,” Paul Sullivan, a Middle East specialist at Georgetown University in Washington, said in e-mailed comments. “Who wants to drop hundreds of millions or billions in a place where ISIL could attack at any moment?”
Still, Iraq’s oil export volumes may not be materially impacted, as there’s no immediate threat to security in the southern provinces that account for the majority of reserves, according to Eurasia Group.
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