BAGHDAD: Two rockets crashed overnight near the US embassy in the Iraqi capital’s Green Zone, a security source said, in the 20th attack against US assets in the country in four months.
None of the multiple attacks since October targeting either the Baghdad embassy or the roughly 5,200 US troops stationed across Iraq has been claimed.
But the US has pointed the finger at Iran-backed groups within the Hashed Al-Shaabi, a military network officially incorporated into Iraq’s state security forces.
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Two rockets hit Iraqi capital’s Green Zone: security source
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Two rockets hit Iraqi capital’s Green Zone: security source
Election of new Iraqi president delayed by Kurds
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s parliament postponed the election of a president on Tuesday to allow Kurdish rivals time to agree on a candidate.
Parliamentary Speaker Haibat Al-Halbussi received requests from Iraq's two main Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, to postpone the vote to allow both parties more time to reach a deal.
By convention, a Shi’ite holds the powerful post of prime minister, the parliamentary Speaker is a Sunni and the largely ceremonial presidency goes to a Kurd.
Under a tacit agreement between the two main Kurdish parties, a PUK member holds the Iraqi presidency, while the president and regional premier of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region is selected from the KDP. But this time the KDP has named Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein as its own candidate for the presidency.
Once elected, the president will then have 15 days to appoint a prime minister, widely expected to be Nouri Al-Maliki, who held the post from 2006 to 2014. The shrewd 75-year-old politician is Iraq’s only two-term premier since the 2003 US-led invasion.
The Coordination Framework, an alliance of Shi’ite parties that holds a parliamentary majority, has already endorsed Maliki.
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