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Iraq

July 1, 2026

Baghdad 7:56 am

36°C

AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP via Getty Images

Here's what to know about Iraq's corruption as Zaidi launches crackdown

Watchdogs and financial institutions regard Iraq as a significantly corrupt country as the new prime minister works to recover public funds.

aqi security personnel patrol in a vehicle along a street in Baghdad on June 28, 2026.

Analysis

Iraqi PM’s anti-corruption drive comes as US pressure mounts on Iran-backed militias

Iraq’s new prime minister has launched a sweeping anti-corruption campaign ahead of key talks in Washington, but analysts say the real test will be whether it reaches Iraq’s most powerful Iran-backed actors.

Amberin Zaman

By Amberin Zaman

Reporting on geopolitics, minorities, human rights, culture

A worker at a market for fuel oil and automotive fuel on March 17, 2026, in Erbil, Iraq.

Explainer

After UAE and Qatar, could Iraq be next to leave OPEC?

Iraq is seeking a higher production quota as the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has slashed oil revenues and plunged the country into a fiscal crisis.

Latest News

Iraq taps Krikor Der-Hagopian as first Armenian Christian ambassador to US

Krikor Der-Hagopian at the 9th Sulaimani Forum, in Sulaimaniyah, Iraq, on April 16, 2025.

Exclusive

Barrack heads to Iraq as US presses Baghdad on Iran-backed militias

Tom Barrack

Amberin Zaman

By Amberin Zaman

Reporting on geopolitics, minorities, human rights, culture

Culture

World Cup opens amid visa disputes for Iran, Iraq and Somalia

Members of the Iranian national soccer team including midfielder Alireza Jahanbakhsh (R) arrive at Tijuana International Airport on June 7, 2026, in Tijuana, Mexico.

Amberin Zaman

Chief Correspondent

Reporting on geopolitics, minorities, human rights, culture

Jared Szuba

Defense and Security Correspondent

In Washington, DC, reporting on defense, national security, military

Beatrice Farhat

Associate Editor (Lebanon)

In Beirut, reporting on regional news, culture, conflict

Suadad al-Salhy

In Baghdad, reporting on politics and security

Lyse Mauvais

In Amman, reporting on humanitarian crises

Winthrop Rodgers

In Sulaymaniyah, reporting on Kurdish issues

Qais al-Khazali (C) commander of the Asaib Ahl al-Haq pro-Iran faction attends the funeral procession of slain Iraqi paramilitary chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani and eight others at the Imam Ali Shrine in the shrine city of Najaf in central Iraq on Jan. 4, 2020.

Pro-Iran parties launch smear campaign against Iraq's intelligence service

A political campaign targeting the Iraqi National Intelligence Service poses new challenges for the state’s key institutions.

Representative Gregory Meeks, (D-NY), and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill, Washington, March 10, 2021.

House committee votes to repeal Iraq war military authorization

The resolution will next head to the full House for a vote. Bipartisan support for repealing the authorization pertaining to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq gained steam following the February US airstrikes in Syria, which the president approved without consulting Congress.

mustafa al-kadhimi

Iraq, US to resume new round of strategic dialogue

Iraq and the US have agreed to resume strategic talks over their mutual relationship and further US troop withdrawals.

Lt. Col. Jace Neuenschwander signs a document in Mosul

Intel: US, Iraq to renew talks over troop presence in April

The Biden White House accepted Baghdad's request to kickstart strategic dialogue

Iraqis stand outside parliament building, or Council of Representatives, in Baghdad's Green Zone on February 27, 2020. (Photo by SABAH ARAR / AFP) (Photo by SABAH ARAR/AFP via Getty Images)

Iraq's PM calls for national dialogue

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi is calling for a comprehensive national dialogue among all of the country’s forces ahead of the election, seizing the opportunity after Pope Francis’ visit to Iraq.

Displaced Iraqis from the Yazidi community, who fled violence between Islamic State (IS) group jihadists and Peshmerga fighters in the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, sit in a field near a camp for internally displaced persons (IDP) in the Sharya area some 15 kilometres from the northern Iraqi city of Dohuk on May 20, 2015.

Iraq's Yazidis call for autonomy as conflict flares between army, PKK affiliates

Ongoing tensions due to regional interference to settle scores among rivals threaten new acts of violence, menacing the Yazidi minority concentrated in the area.

An Iraqi Airways Boeing 747 cargo aircraft is pictured on the tarmac of Baghdad's international airport following its reopening on July 23, 2020, after a closure since March forced by the coronavirus pandemic restrictions, aimed at preventing the spread of the deadly COVID-19 illness in Iraq. (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP) (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP via Getty Images)

Iraq gives visa on arrival to citizens of 30 countries

The list includes the United States, China and other large economies in a bid to attract investment to Iraq; most foreigners need to apply for a visa before traveling to Iraq.

Iraqi security forces guard a symbolic funeral procession attended by high-ranking officials in Baghdad on October 23, 2019 for Major General Ali al-Lami, a commander of the Iraqi Federal Police's Fourth Division, who was killed the previous day in Samarra in the province of Salahuddin, north of the Iraqi capital. - The police commander was killed in an ambush on October 22 which Iraqi security forces blamed on dormant cells of the Islamic State (IS) group. (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP) (Photo by AHMAD A

Flurry of Sunni Triangle ops sparks questions over Islamic State

Several large military operations conducted in Sunni-majority areas of Iraq in recent weeks and mass killings have raised questions over whether a much-debated IS resurgence is actually in the making or whether the roots of the problem lie elsewhere.

BAGHDAD, IRAQ - NOVEMBER 30: A woman works at the restored Al-Mustansiriya University, founded in 1227 and one of the oldest Islamic universities in the world, on November 30, 2011 in Baghdad, Iraq. Iraq is transitioning as the U.S. military continues its withdrawal from the country by the end of December following the war that began in 2003. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Baghdad’s Mustansiriya Madrassa ready for World Heritage List

Baghdad’s Mustansiriya Madrassa established by Abbasid Caliph Al-Mustansir around 1230 suffers obsolescence, dampness, environmental pollution and urban sprawl.

A picture taken on February 6, 2021 shows the Great Ziggurat temple in the ancient city of Ur, where Abraham the father of three religions is thought to have been born, which falls now in southern Iraq's Dhi Qar province, around 375 kilometres southeast of Baghdad. - The March 5-8 visit -- the first ever by a pope -- will include inter-religious prayers at the ancient city of Ur in Iraq's south. The Pope's prayers will bring Christians and Muslims together, as well as the faithful from the ancient religions

Pope speaks of interfaith tolerance from ancient city of Ur

The ancient city is the birthplace of the father of the three major monotheistic religions, a fitting backdrop for an interfaith dialogue, Pope Francis said.

A picture shows the scene of a twin suicide bombing on a bustling commercial street in the heart of Baghdad on January 21, 2021. - The toll in a twin suicide bombing in an open-air Baghdad market morning topped 20 dead and 40 wounded, an interior ministry official told AFP. The ministry said the first suicide bomber had rushed into the market and claimed to feel sick, so that people would gather around him. He then detonated his explosives. (Photo by Sabah ARAR / AFP) (Photo by SABAH ARAR/AFP via Getty Imag

At least one killed in Baghdad explosion

The grenade attack targeted a group of people commemorating a late imam who is revered by Shiite Muslims; the attack follows an Islamic State attack in the Iraqi capital in January.

Pope Francis climbs the stairs to board his Alitalia Airbus A330 aircraft as he departs from the Iraqi capital's Baghdad International Airport on March 8, 2021. (Photo by Ahmad AL-RUBAYE / AFP) (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP via Getty Images)

As pope ends trip, Iraq's prime minister calls for national dialogue

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi applauded Pope Francis' visit as a great success and reached out to the Iraqi people and different parties to form a dialogue of understanding and tolerance among them.