Iraq

"The combat mission of the international coalition has ended and all the combat equipment withdrew outside Iraq," al-Kadhimi said on Wednesday in a tweet posted on the official Twitter page of his media office. "The role of the coalition has become limited to advise and support according to the strategic dialogue," the Iraqi Prime Minister added.

Acting on intelligence reports, the Iraqi aircraft conducted 14 airstrikes on IS positions and hideouts in Himreen mountain range in the north of the provincial capital Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, Xinhua news agency quoted Mohammed al-Azawi, a local leader of the paramilitary Hashd Shaabi forces, as saying. The airstrikes resulted in the killings of four IS militants, al-Azawi said.

The motion, passed on Tuesday, will authorise cross-border operations to be carried out in Iraq and Syria from October 30, 2021 to October 30, 2023, Xinhua News Agency reported. The previous cross-border motions were only for one-year duty. The motion also allowed the deployment of foreign armed forces in Turkey with the principles to be determined by the president.

Al-Kadhimi said on Twitter on Monday that the Iraqi Intelligence Service carried out a complex operation outside the country to arrest Ghazwan al-Zawbai, nicknamed Abu Ubaidah Baghdad, reports Xinhua news agency. Al-Zawbaie is also involved in at least four deadly suicide bomb attacks in Baghdad during 2016 and 2017, Rasoul added.

The incident took place on Sunday evening when IS militants sporadically opened fire on Iraqi army outposts in the Udheim area, some 60 km north of the provincial capital Baquba, Xinhua news agency reported. The attacks resulted in the killing of three soldiers and the wounding of two others, Mohammed al-Obaidi from the local tribal fighters told the news agency.

A joint force from the Iraqi army and Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) killed the militants near the town of Altun Kupri, some 40 km north of the namesake provincial capital Kirkuk, said Ali al-Fraiji, commander of Kirkuk Operations Command, in a statement.

In a televised speech on Friday, al-Sadr said that he had received a paper on reforms in the country pledged by the political parties, calling him to return to the elections, reports Xinhua news agency. "We received the reform paper from politicians we trust, and we found it to be in accordance with our aspirations," al-Sadr said. "We will participate in the elections with determination to save and reform Iraq from corruption," he added.

Based on intelligence reports, a joint force from the provincial police and Sunni tribal fighters launched the operation on Saturday in areas north of the town of al-Muqdadiya, some 100 km northeast of the capital Baghdad, Nihad al-Mahdawi, head of Diyala police media office, told Xinhua news agency. The operation aimed to clear rural areas in the north of Maqdadiyah from IS militants and destroy their hideouts, al-Mahdawi said.

Al-Kadhimi's comment on Thursday came after his visit to Washington, during which he held meetings with US President Joe Biden and other officials, according to a statement issued by his media office. The Prime Minister said his visit helped "establish the foundations of the permanent relationship and partnership with the US in various fields, the most important of which are security, economy.

"The latest toll of the fire in the quarantine center in al-Hussein Hospital in the provincial capital al-Nasiriyah rose to 64 killed and 50 wounded," the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) report quoted Ammar al-Zamily, a spokesman for the provincial Health Department, as saying. According to the INA report, the fire erupted on Monday evening in the the quarantine centre and quickly spread to 20 sandwich panel caravans nearby.