Iraq

The leader of the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant (ISIL), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, purportedly ordered all Muslims to obey him in a video released July 5 on social media.

The hitherto elusive Baghdadi, who on June 29 proclaimed a "caliphate" straddling Syria and Iraq, made his appeal in a sermon delivered on Friday in the militant-held northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

Turkey's western province of Istanbul, the largest city in the country, is boosting national exports by providing nearly half of the country's foreign trade, according to the Turkish Exporters' Assembly.
 

The notorious ISIL, or “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,” which has made a name for itself by chopping off heads and crucifying opponents, has recently made global news by declaring a “caliphate.”
 

Back in the news due to the success of the Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq, the caliphate was the position of the putative spiritual and political leader of the Muslim world until 1924

It may be amusing to some, but there is nothing funny about the declaration of the “Caliphate” by the militant group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The rise of rejectionist groups is testimony to an older, deeper struggle that still haunts the region today. It would be folly to dismiss Islamist rejectionism as a fringe ideology.

Footage showing a jihadist rebel leader fighting in Syria giving a fiery speech to militants while holding a pink notebook has gone viral on social media.

Islamic militants seized an eastern Syrian oil field near Iraq and inched closer to the Turkish border on Friday as they try to consolidate their control of an area along the length of the Euphrates river stretching through Syria and Iraq.
     

The Iraqi parliament's inability to agree on a new government in its first session was a "regrettable failure", Iraq's most powerful Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said in a Friday sermon delivered by his aide.
   

The United States came out Thursday against a call by Iraq's Kurdish leader for an independence referendum, saying the country could only repel Islamic State radicals by staying united.
      
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Masoud Barzani earlier told parliament to make preparations for a "referendum on the right of self-determination."      

Turkey’s intelligence chief was the first official in Ankara to learn about the release of 32 Turkish drivers who had been kidnapped by Islamist militants in northern Iraq.