Kurds Ask for U.S. Support in Counteroffensive Against Islamic State

Kurds Ask for U.S. Support in Counteroffensive Against Islamic State
A Kurdish Peshmerga fighter positioned behind dirt barriers along the front line with militants from the al-Qaida-inspired Islamic State, Mariam Bek village, between the cities of Tikrit and Kirkuk, Iraq, June 30, 2014 (AP photo by Hussein Malla).

A Texas court is the new battleground between the Iraqi government and the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Baghdad insists that a tanker full of oil off the Texas coast, originating from the country’s Kurdish region, properly belongs to Iraq’s Ministry of Oil, and obtained a ruling to that effect from a Texas judge.

On Aug. 4 the Kurdistan Regional Government filed a motion in a Texas court to lift the order. A KRG statement said that oil had been “legally produced, exported, and sold . . . in accordance with the Iraqi constitution and law.”

The dispute comes amid continued chaos in Iraq, as fighters associated with the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), continue to make advances, including against Kurdish areas. The KRG’s peshmerga forces have mounted a counteroffensive, pulling in Kurds from neighboring Turkey and Syria to fight in Iraq.

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