Latest in Iraq
The French foreign minister has made a trip to Iraq to attempt to make a deal to try foreign fighters in the country. The plan faces diplomatic obstacles abroad and opposition at home.
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared on Order from Chaos.
A federal jury in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday found former Blackwater guard Nicholas Slatten guilty of one count of first-degree murder for his role in a 2007 massacre in Iraq that left at least 31 Iraqi civilians dead or wounded. This was the third attempt by prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office in the District of Columbia. Slatten was convicted of murder in 2014 and sentenced to life imprisonment, but in 2017, the D.C.
The third criminal trial of Blackwater guard Nicholas Slatten for his role in the 2007 Nisour Square massacre begins Monday, Nov. 5, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia before Judge Royce Lamberth. Slatten was convicted of first-degree murder in 2014 and sentenced to life imprisonment, but in 2017 the D.C.
Editor’s note: This week, Lawfare is running a series of essays on federalist governance in the Middle East. This essay is the sixth in the series. Read the introductory essay here.
For a brief moment, the Islamic State was a massive success.
“[The Islamic State]’s ideology is so dangerous that we cannot afford to show any leniency” —an Iraqi judge interviewed in Mosul (Dec. 13, 2017)
This weekend, Iraqi citizens went to the polls to vote in the first parliamentary elections since the Islamic State seized—and subsequently lost—a third of the country’s territory in 2014.
Editor’s Note: The last year saw a rare bit of good news in Iraq, as the government there expelled much of the Islamic State from its territory. However, many problems plague the country. Douglas Ollivant of New America warns that the Iraqi government now must take on a far more pernicious foe: corruption. He details the problems this causes in Iraq and offers ideas on how to reduce it.
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For the past three weeks, the central government of Iraq has been engaged in an unprecedented military campaign to re-assert its authority over the country’s internally disputed territories.