RSS
US Piles Pressure on Iraq to Resume Kurdish Oil Exports
FILE PHOTO: An oil field is seen in Kirkuk, Iraq October 18, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani/File Photo
US President Donald Trump’s administration is piling pressure on Iraq to allow Kurdish oil exports to restart or face sanctions alongside Iran, eight sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
An advisor to the Iraqi prime minister denied in a statement there had been a threat of sanctions or pressure on the government during its communications with the US administration.
A speedy resumption of exports from Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region would help to offset a potential fall in Iranian oil exports, which Washington has pledged to cut to zero as part of Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.
The US government has said it wants to isolate Iran from the global economy and eliminate its oil export revenues in order to slow Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon.
Iraq’s oil minister made a surprise announcement on Monday that exports from Kurdistan would resume next week. That would mark the end of a near two-year dispute that has cut flows of more than 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Kurdish oil via Turkey to global markets.
Reuters spoke to eight sources in Baghdad, Washington and Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, who said that mounting pressure from the new US administration was a key driver behind Monday’s announcement.
All of the sources declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.
Iran views its neighbor and ally Iraq as vital for keeping its economy afloat amidst sanctions. But Baghdad, a partner to both the United States and Iran, is wary of being caught in the crosshairs of Trump’s policy to squeeze Tehran, the sources said.
Trump wants Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani to sever economic and military ties with Iran. Last week, Reuters reported that Iraq’s central bank blocked five more private banks from dollar access at the request of the U.S. Treasury.
Iraq’s announcement on export resumption was hurried and lacked detail on how it would address technical issues that need to be resolved before flows can restart, four of the eight sources also.
Iran wields considerable military, political and economic influence in Iraq through its powerful Shi’ite militias and the political parties it backs in Baghdad. But the increased US pressure comes at a time when Iran has been weakened by Israel’s attacks on its regional proxies.
Farhad Alaaldin, a foreign affairs adviser to the Iraqi prime minister, said in a statement there was no U.S. threat to impose sanctions if oil exports were not resumed. He noted Iraq’s parliament had already passed a law establishing a price for the oil and it was down to the companies involved to start pumping it to the pipeline.
“Decisions related to the management of national resources are taken in accordance with Iraqi sovereignty and in a way that serves the country’s economic interests,” he said.
CURB SMUGGLING
With the pipeline taking Kurdish crude to the Turkish port of Ceyhan closed since 2023, the smuggling of Kurdish oil to Iran by truck has flourished. The US is urging Baghdad to curb this flow, six of the eight sources said.
Reuters reported in July that an estimated 200,000 barrels per day of cut-price crude was being smuggled from Kurdistan to Iran and, to a lesser extent, Turkey by truck. The sources said the exports remained at around that level.
“Washington is pressuring Baghdad to ensure Kurdish crude is exported to global markets through Turkey rather than being sold cheaply to Iran,” said an Iraqi oil official with knowledge of the crude trucking shipments crossing to Iran.
While the closure of the Turkish pipeline has prompted an uptick in Kurdish oil smuggling via Iran, a larger network that some experts believe generates at least $1 billion a year for Iran and its proxies has flourished in Iraq since al-Sudani took office in 2022, Reuters reported last year.
Two US administration officials confirmed the US had asked the Iraqi government to resume Kurdish exports. One of them said the move would help to dampen upward pressure on oil prices.
Asked about the administration’s pressuring of Iraq to open up Kurdish oil exports, a White House official said: “It’s not only important for regional security that our Kurdish partners be allowed to export their own oil but also help keep the price of gas low.”
There has been close military cooperation between authorities in Kurdistan and the United States in the fight against Islamic State.
Trump’s restoration of the “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran was one of his first acts after returning to office in late January. In addition to efforts to drive Iran’s oil exports to zero, Trump ordered the US treasury secretary to ensure that Iran can’t use Iraq’s financial system.
Trump also came into office promising to lower energy costs for Americans. A sharp drop in oil exports from Iran could drive up oil prices, and with it the gasoline price worldwide.
The resumption of Kurdish exports would help offset some of the loss to global supply of lower Iranian exports, but would cover only a fraction of the more than 2 million bpd of crude and fuel that Iran ships. However, Iran has proven adept in the past at finding means to circumvent US sanctions on its oil sales.
Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank, said the restart of exports from Kurdistan could help increase global oil supplies at a time when output was disrupted from other regions, such as Kazakhstan, where exports have dropped this week following a Ukrainian drone attack on a major pipeline pumping station in southern Russia.
“At this point in time, I believe the market has adopted a relatively neutral but nervous stance on crude oil prices,” he said.
HURDLES TO RESTART
The pipeline was halted by Turkey in March 2023 after the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) ordered Ankara to pay Baghdad $1.5 billion in damages for unauthorized exports between 2014 and 2018.
There are still unresolved issues around payment, pricing and maintenance, the sources told Reuters. Two days of talks in the Kurdish city of Erbil this week failed to reach agreement, sources said.
The federal government wanted exports to restart without making commitments to the KRG on payments and without clarity on the payment mechanism, a source familiar with the matter said.
“We can’t do that. We need clear visibility on guarantees,” the source said.
Oil companies working in Kurdistan also have questions over payments.
Executives from Norwegian firm DNO told analysts on Feb. 6 that before agreeing to ship oil through the pipeline to Ceyhan they wanted to understand how the company would be paid for future deliveries and how it would recoup $300 million for the oil it had delivered before the pipeline was shut.
Turkey has yet to receive any information from Iraq on the resumption of flows, Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar told Reuters on Wednesday.
A restart could also cause issues in OPEC+, or the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries plus Russia and other allies, where Iraq has been under pressure to comply with its pledge to reduce its output. Additional supply from the Kurdish region could put Iraq over its OPEC+ supply target.
An Iraqi official said it was possible for Iraq to restart the pipeline and remain compliant with OPEC+ supply policy.
Giovanni Staunovo, a commodity analyst at investment bank UBS, said the overall impact of the resumption could be muted.
“From an oil market perspective, Iraq is bound to the OPEC+ production deal, so I wouldn’t expect additional production from Iraq in case of a pipeline restart, but just a change in the way it is exported (currently, among others, using trucks),” he said.
The post US Piles Pressure on Iraq to Resume Kurdish Oil Exports first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Documents Reveal Hamas Uses Gaza Hospitals for Military Purposes, International NGOs Complicit in Operations
Israeli soldiers inspect the Al Shifa hospital complex, amid their ground operation against Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, in Gaza City, Nov. 15, 2023 in this handout image. Photo: Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS
Internal documents from Hamas’s Ministry of Interior and National Security dating back to 2020 reveal the Palestinian terrorist group has long used Gaza’s medical facilities for military purposes, according to a new report.
On Wednesday, NGO Monitor — an independent, Jerusalem-based research institute that tracks anti-Israel bias among nongovernmental organizations — released two documents declassified by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), revealing how Hamas has weaponized Gaza’s hospitals for years to shelter its operatives and leaders.
Translated from Arabic, the documents also reveal that international organizations — including the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders — are aware of Hamas’s presence in Gaza’s medical facilities, even as they publicly deny or downplay it.
“While repeatedly echoing Hamas allegations and condemning Israel’s operations to end the exploitation of hospitals for terror, these groups clearly knew that Hamas exploited these facilities and chose to remain silent,” Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor, said in a statement.
BREAKING: Leaked docs show Hamas admits to using Gaza hospitals as terror infrastructure, in files authored by its Interior Security Mechanism and obtained by NGO Monitor. Hospitals served as command hubs while NGOs went along under Hamas rules.
Here’s what they reveal
pic.twitter.com/HXI6hULYTG
— NGO Monitor (@NGOmonitor) September 10, 2025
Since the start of the war in Gaza, Hamas’s exploitation of hospitals has drawn heightened attention, with Israel facing international criticism for its operations near medical facilities as it seeks to crack down on the terrorist group.
According to NGO Monitor, the internal Hamas documents show a deliberate strategy of “embedding its military infrastructure, fighters, and leadership within hospitals and medical facilities in Gaza … thereby violating international law and endangering civilian lives.”
The documents also show that foreign NGOs have not only been aware of Hamas’s presence in Gaza’s medical facilities but also have sometimes worked alongside them.
For example, one internal memo notes that the Red Cross occupied a wing in the Al-Shifa medical complex directly adjacent to offices used by Hamas.
Despite international claims to the contrary, the documents show that the Palestinian terrorist group views medical facilities not as neutral spaces but as integral parts of its infrastructure.
“These facilities are considered to be of interest to hostile security parties and an important source for intelligence gathering, especially in times of war, since these health facilities are a place of gathering for the wounded during times of escalation, and these wounded cases hold sensitive positions in the resistance,” one of the internal memos reads.
“Furthermore, these health facilities are a place of gathering for numerous leaders of the movement and the government during times of escalation,” it continues.
The documents also reveal how Hamas closely monitors and controls foreign NGOs working in hospitals due to fears that they might serve as channels for Israeli intelligence.
“Do not let these associations have their own locations to work inside health facilities. When a location is allocated for these associations, it shall be outside the main building of the clinic or hospital, and far away from movement locations, and following security authorization,” one of the internal memos reads.
“Medical members from the Gaza Strip must join incoming delegations, whether the delegations work in hospitals or their own locations,” it adds.
Under this structured oversight, NGO Monitor explains that foreign organizations had to operate according to Hamas’s rules, “making them complicit in a system” that exploits medical centers for terrorist purposes.
“The internal Hamas documents reviewed in this report expose a systematic Hamas strategy to militarize Gaza’s health-care system, using hospitals and medical facilities as extensions of its military and security apparatus,” NGO Monitor says.
“This arrangement is fundamentally inconsistent with the principle of medical neutrality in Gaza, transforming humanitarian spaces into dual-use facilities that serve both medical and military purposes,” it continues.
RSS
Mamdani Maintains Comfortable Lead in New York City Mayoral Race, Despite Jewish Opposition
Candidate Zohran Mamdani speaks during a Democratic New York City mayoral primary debate, June 4, 2025, in New York, US. Photo: Yuki Iwamura/Pool via REUTERS
Zohran Mamdani maintains a substantial lead in New York City’s mayoral contest, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released on Tuesday, as discontent with City Hall continues to rattle the electorate.
The survey of likely voters found Mamdani, a democratic socialist from Queens, taking 45 percent in a four-way matchup, well ahead of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo at 23 percent, Republican activist Curtis Sliwa at 15 percent, and embattled incumbent Eric Adams at just 12 percent.
If Adams were to exit the race, Mamdani’s margin would narrow, with 46 percent support compared to Cuomo’s 30 percent. Sliwa would hold 17 percent of the electorate.
The poll underscores Adams’s strong standing among certain demographics, particularly Jewish voters, who make up a crucial bloc in several boroughs. Among Jewish voters, Adams receives 42 percent support, while Mamdani and Cuomo are tied at 21 percent each. Moreover, 75 percent of Jewish voters view Mamdani unfavorably, according to the poll, highlighting a key vulnerability for the progressive candidate.
The results came days after another poll showed similar results.
Mamdani holds a commanding 22-point advantage over his chief rival in the mayoral race, Cuomo, 46 percent to 24 percent, according to the poll by the New York Times and Siena College. Sliwa polled at 15 percent, and incumbent Adams polled at 9 percent among likely New York City voters.
Perhaps most striking, the survey found that Mamdani would still beat Cuomo in November’s election, 48 percent to 44 percent, if the other candidates dropped out and it was a one-on-one matchup.
Adams and Cuomo are both running as independents.
A little-known politician before this year’s Democratic primary campaign, Mamdani is an outspoken supporter of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination.
Mamdani has also repeatedly refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, falsely suggesting the country does not offer “equal rights” for all its citizens, and promised to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York.
Mamdani also initially defended the phrase “globalize the intifada”— which references previous periods of sustained Palestinian terrorism against Jews and Israels and has been widely interpreted as a call to expand political violence — by invoking the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during World War II. However, Mamdani has since backpedaled on his support for the phrase, saying that he would discourage his supporters from using the slogan.
Mamdani’s overall strength appears to rest not only on name recognition among progressives but also on enthusiasm. Approximately 91 percent of his supporters say they’re enthusiastic about their choice, far outpacing backers of other candidates, the Quinnipiac data found. Cuomo, despite his experience and political legacy, is hurt by a 56 percent unfavorable rating.
Voters rank crime — 30 percent — and affordable housing — 21 percent — as the most pressing concerns, with inflation a distant third.
Moreover, Mamdani’s adversarial and combative rhetoric aimed at President Donald Trump seems to help him in the race.
“The name not on the ballot but seen having influence on this race is President Trump. And likely voters in New York City make it clear they want the next occupant of Gracie Mansion to stand up to Trump when it comes to issues inside New York City,” said Quinnipiac University Poll Assistant Director Mary Snow.
The findings paint a picture of a fractured electorate, with Mamdani consolidating left-leaning voters while Adams maintains strongholds among more moderate constituencies, including Jewish neighborhoods, and Cuomo tries to galvanize support among voters as various scandals loom over his campaign. Sliwa remains in the mid-teens but could play spoiler if the race tightens.
Mamdani has also sought to distance himself from some of the most radical policies he previously advocated for, such as defunding the police. Mamdani’s attempt to strike a more moderate tone seems to be paying dividends thus far. Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY), a Democrat from a swing district, endorsed Mamdani on Wednesday.
“@ZohranKMamdani fights for the PEOPLE. Andrew Cuomo is a selfish POS who only fights for himself and other corrupt elites. I know whose side I’m on. I’m with the people. I’m with Zohran,” Ryan posted on social media.
RSS
‘Pro-Hamas Terror Ties’: US Sen. Tom Cotton Warns of CAIR’s Push Into Philadelphia Schools
CAIR officials give press conference on the Israel-Hamas war. Photo: Kyle Mazza / SOPA Images/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
US Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) has warned in a letter to the Department of Education that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a nonprofit advocacy group long accused of having ties to terrorist organizations including Hamas, is seeking to infiltrate the city of Philadelphia’s public education system.
The letter was dated Tuesday, about two weeks after the Philadelphia chapter of CAIR announced that it was partnering with local schools.
“CAIR-Philadelphia is partnering with schools this year to make sure every student feels seen, safe, and supported,” the group said in an Instagram post. “Invite the CAIR Philly staff for a training to educators and staff on cultural competency, anti-bullying, and inclusive practices.”
“The CAIR Philadelphia staff works not only with staff and administration, but also directly with students!” the post continued. “We can visit classrooms as guest facilitators to lead student-centered discussions.”
Given CAIR’s controversial history, the federal government should act to prevent such a program from becoming reality, according to Cotton.
“It is well documented that CAIR has deep ties to pro-Hamas terrorist organizations and publicly supports Hamas’s terrorist activities,” Cotton wrote in the letter to US Education Secretary Linda McMahon. “As I noted in a previous letter, the Department of Justice listed CAIR as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee in the largest terrorism-financing case in US history. Further, CAIR-Philadelphia’s executive director, Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu, stated that Israeli ‘occupation’ was the reason for the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack by Hamas in Israel.”
Cotton’s letter cited materials which CAIR distributes across the city and promotes in its programming — notably its “American Jews and Political Power” course — and other attempts to revise the history of Sharia law, which severely restricts the rights of women and is opposed to other core features of liberal societies.
One of CAIR’s most controversial documents demands that teachers omit key facts about the 9/11 terrorist attacks which, in addition to destroying the World Trade Centers and severely damaging the Pentagon, claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 Americans.
“Avoid using language that validates the claims of the 9/11 attackers by associating their acts of mass murder with Islam and Muslims,” CAIR insists in the material. “For example, avoid using inaccurate and inflammatory terms such as ‘Islamic terrorists,’ ‘jihadists,’ or ‘radical Islamic terrorists.’”
Additionally, since the Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, CAIR-Philadelphia has lobbied the state government to enact anti-Israel policies and accused Gov. Josh Shapiro of ignoring the plight of Palestinians.
In a 2023 speech following Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities, CAIR’s national executive director, Nihad Awad, said he was “happy to see” Palestinians “breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land.”
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas.” CAIR has disputed the accuracy of the ADL’s claim, despite government trial exhibits indicating its founders participated in meetings with Hamas supporters in Philadelphia. The organization has asserted that it “unequivocally condemn[s] all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’”
“Such an organization should never have access to our nation’s children,” Cotton wrote in his letter, urging the Education Department to “ensure” that CAIR is not able to push its ideology on American schoolchildren.
“Sen. Cotton’s comments bring much needed scrutiny to the alarming trend of unchecked outside groups influencing public school curricula. CAIR, with their ties to Hamas, should have no involvement with the Philadelphia School District,” said Steve Rosenberg, Philadelphia Regional Director for the North American Values Institute (NAVI). “This raises serious concerns about balance, transparency, and educational integrity, not to mention basic decision making. Parents and taxpayers deserve assurance that their children aren’t being exposed to ideologically driven lessons — especially from groups with dangerous political affiliations.”
CAIR’s pushing into K-12 education comes at a time of rising antisemitism in public schools.
In August, for example, the Education Department promptly opened an investigation into allegations of antisemitism in Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS) following the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) filing a complaint regarding the matter.
Jewish students allegedly experienced relentless bullying in BCPS, where students pantomimed Nazi salutes, treated campuses as a canvas for Nazi-inspired and antisemitic graffiti, and sent text messages threatening that the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas will be summoned to kill Jewish students the bullies do not like, the ADL complaint said, noting that teachers behaved even worse than students. At Bard High School, an English teacher allegedly performed the Nazi salute three times and later admitted to administrative officials that he did so intentionally to harm “the sole Jewish student” enrolled in his class. Following the incident, he suggested that the student unregister for his class because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be discussed in it.
“The allegations that Baltimore City Public Schools tolerate virulent Nazi-inspired antisemitic harassment of its Jewish students is at once appalling and infuriating. When a teacher allegedly directs a Nazi salute toward a Jewish student, or non-Jewish students harass their Jewish contemporaries by saying ‘all Jews should die,’ we are not simply talking about contemptible bullying; we are talking about a shocking abdication of educator responsibility that constitutes unlawful antisemitic harassment under Title VI,” Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
Last month, The Algemeiner reported that the Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD) in California, which stands accused of refusing to address antisemitism, ruled that a teacher who allegedly showed her students antisemitic, discriminatory, and biased content violated policy when she screened an offensive video about the Holocaust in her classroom.
The move came without the prompting of the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, with which two Jewish civil rights groups, StandWithUs (SWU) and the Bay Area Jewish Coalition (BAJC), filed a complaint against the district in April.
Among other things, SWU and BAJC alleged that an SCUSD employee, Wilcox High School teacher Kauser Adenwala, screened a documentary produced in Turkey which compared the war in Gaza to the Holocaust. The graphic film at one point “displays a picture of a young Jewish child who was branded with a number by the Nazis during World War II and then suddenly shows an untraceable image of children with Arabic writing on their arms,” according to the complaint, which alleged the teacher’s conduct violated numerous district policies and potentially state law.
She remains employed by the district to this day.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.