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Iraq Halts Gas Imports from Iran

A view of the Baiji gas power station in Iraq. (Government media)
A view of the Baiji gas power station in Iraq. (Government media)
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Iraq Halts Gas Imports from Iran

A view of the Baiji gas power station in Iraq. (Government media)
A view of the Baiji gas power station in Iraq. (Government media)

The US State Department welcomed Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani's commitment to respecting sanctions imposed on Iran.

Iraq will end on Saturday gas imports from Iran in line with conditions imposed by US President Donald Trump's administration.

The government will now be faced with the task of finding alternative sources of gas that is needed to fuel power plants. Experts are predicting a very difficult summer as temperatures soar and with little power to relieve the heat.

Iraq used to import 50 million cubic meters of gas from Iran per day to fuel its power plants.

"We have nothing to announce with regard to the current electricity waiver that expires on the (March) eighth...We are reviewing all existing sanctions waivers that provide Iran any degree of economic or financial relief," State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said on Thursday.

"We are urging the Iraqi government to eliminate its dependence on Iranian sources of energy as soon as possible, and welcome the Iraqi Prime Minister's commitment to achieve energy independence."

The US is reviewing all existing sanctions waivers that provide Iran any degree of economic relief, and urging the Iraqi government to eliminate its dependence on Iranian sources of energy as soon as possible, Bruce said.

The US is using the waiver review in part to increase pressure on Baghdad to allow Kurdish crude oil exports via Türkiye, according to two sources familiar with the matter, reported Reuters.

Iraq's negotiations with the semi-autonomous Kurdish region over the oil export resumption have been fraught so far.

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.

Trump's restoration of the "maximum pressure" campaign on Iran was one of his first acts after returning to office in late January.

Alternatives

Finding alternatives for Iranian gas appears to be bleak so far. Member of the oil and gas parliamentary committee Ali Saadoun al-Lamy admitted that Iraq does not have alternatives at the moment.

Several power plants rely primarily on gas from Iran, he told the media. Cutting the supply or abandoning it suddenly will lead to a drop in electricity generation in Baghdad and other regions.

Turning to local gas will take two or more years to achieve, while importing gas and electricity from other countries besides Iran may take a month or more, he explained.

Iraq produces 27,000 megawatts of electricity. The majority of its power plants run on gas and production occasionally drops to 17,000 megawatts.

The figures are below its demand for 40,000 megawatts to meet demand.

Speculation is rife in Iraq about the new US administration's policy towards the country and the possibility that sanctions on Iran will impact it as Baghdad gears up for parliamentary elections this year.

Political sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the coming months will witness a "settling of political scores" as American pressure mounts on Iran-aligned forces in the country.

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Arab World

Lebanon Prosecutor Requests Charges for Ex-President Aoun Over Beirut Port Blast

Lebanon's then President Michel Aoun is pictured at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon April 7, 2021. (Dalati Nohra/Handout via Reuters)
Lebanon's then President Michel Aoun is pictured at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon April 7, 2021. (Dalati Nohra/Handout via Reuters)
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Lebanon Prosecutor Requests Charges for Ex-President Aoun Over Beirut Port Blast

Lebanon's then President Michel Aoun is pictured at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon April 7, 2021. (Dalati Nohra/Handout via Reuters)
Lebanon's then President Michel Aoun is pictured at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon April 7, 2021. (Dalati Nohra/Handout via Reuters)

A Lebanese prosecutor on Tuesday requested that former president Michel Aoun be indicted over the 2020 Beirut port blast that killed more than 200 people, a judicial official told AFP. 

The prosecutor at Lebanon's Court of Cassation asked the judge overseeing the case, Tarek Bitar, to "press charges against (former) president Aoun," said the official, requesting anonymity. 

The official added that charges were being sought against Aoun because he "had prior knowledge of the presence of ammonium nitrate at the port and its danger, without taking the necessary measures" or referring it to the country's Higher Defense Council. 

The massive explosion on August 4, 2020 killed more than 220 people, injured more than 6,500 and laid waste to swathes of the capital. 

Lebanese authorities have said the explosion was triggered by a fire in a warehouse where tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer had been stored haphazardly for years, despite repeated warnings to senior officials. 

Nobody has been punished for the blast despite public anger and families of the blast victims demanding justice in a country long plagued by official impunity. 

In March, a judicial official told AFP that judge Bitar had completed his probe. 

He referred the case to the public prosecutor who was to study it, and prosecutor Mohammad Saab submitted his review on Tuesday, the official said. 

The review specified the responsibility of more than 70 defendants, including current and former politicians, security and military officials, and civil servants, some of whom were previously charged by Bitar. 

The charges remain up to Bitar, who could issue them in the coming weeks. 

The case had been bogged down by political and legal wrangling since 2023, after Iran-backed Hezbollah led a campaign demanding Bitar's removal and dozens of lawsuits also sought to remove him from the case. 

However, Bitar resumed his investigations last year as Lebanon's balance of power shifted. 

President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam took office following a 2023-2024 war between Israel and Hezbollah, which weakened the Lebanese armed group. 

Since then, several legal impediments to Bitar's work have also been removed, including the lifting of a travel ban against him. 

Arab World

Alarmed Yemenis Flee South as Houthis Keep Up Attacks

Salma Mohammed, 60, a displaced Yemeni woman, sits inside her tent at the Al-Firdaws camp in Ras Imran, just outside Aden, Yemen, Monday, Sept. 14, 2026. (AP)
Salma Mohammed, 60, a displaced Yemeni woman, sits inside her tent at the Al-Firdaws camp in Ras Imran, just outside Aden, Yemen, Monday, Sept. 14, 2026. (AP)
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Alarmed Yemenis Flee South as Houthis Keep Up Attacks

Salma Mohammed, 60, a displaced Yemeni woman, sits inside her tent at the Al-Firdaws camp in Ras Imran, just outside Aden, Yemen, Monday, Sept. 14, 2026. (AP)
Salma Mohammed, 60, a displaced Yemeni woman, sits inside her tent at the Al-Firdaws camp in Ras Imran, just outside Aden, Yemen, Monday, Sept. 14, 2026. (AP)

After a drone strike sent shrapnel flying into his wife's chest, killing her, Muhammad Aiyash and his three children fled with no belongings to a new makeshift camp for the displaced in the southern Yemeni city of Aden, the interim capital.

Panic has spread as Yemen's Houthis captured territories along the country's Red Sea coast that has enabled the Iran-aligned militants to seize another part of the country and tighten their grip over the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, one of the world's most important shipping routes for goods and commodities, including oil.

"By God, we do not possess even a single grain of flour. We have no mattresses and no clothes," said Aiyash, who is in his 60s and left his home behind in the ancient port city of Mokha in ‌a desperate search ‌for shelter in Yemen's latest crisis.

The UN refugee agency said on Tuesday ‌that ⁠more than 100,000 people ⁠had been internally displaced by the renewed conflict in Yemen, and that thousands more have fled by sea to Djibouti.

In the latest round of fighting, the Houthis have extended their control from the northern, most populous areas of Yemen, to cities and towns and islands in the west.

They have also opened a new area of combat in the Iran war, increasing pressure on ⁠global energy markets following the earlier effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The ‌Houthis have also stepped up attacks on Saudi Arabia.

'THE WAR CAME SUDDENLY'

At the Aden camp, families ‌sat beside tents, tending sheep and trying to assemble rudimentary shelters. Children stayed close to their parents as ‌adults carried belongings.

One displaced man, Tawfiq al-Kharij, showed a shrapnel injury to his leg as he sat with relatives outside a tent. He said he escaped with nothing but the clothes he was wearing.

"We were living peacefully in God's care, then the war came suddenly,” Kharij said. "Some died, and others survived."

UNHCR said on Tuesday that humanitarian access ‌remained "a major challenge".

"Insecurity, damaged roads, telecommunications disruptions and movement restrictions are affecting operations," the agency said in a statement.

Khadija Kudaf and her children had to walk for ⁠three days to get to ⁠Aden, a port city. "We didn't even bring the children's clothes," she said.

Yemenis are all too familiar with suffering.

The Arab world's most impoverished country has been mired in conflict since the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2014, leading to a civil war that led to one of the world's biggest humanitarian crises.

A UN-brokered truce in 2022 largely halted major fighting, despite expiring six months later, but efforts to turn it into a lasting political settlement have stalled as regional tensions have intensified.

In Taiz province, northwest of Aden, another newly erected camp has begun to receive people fleeing fighting. Women and children carried water in jerrycans at the camp, while others washed clothes and gathered around tents.

A displaced woman there, Taghreed Salem, said families were struggling to find basic supplies.

“We arrived fleeing from the war, from the shells, from the missiles, from the aircraft that strike,” Salem said. “We came as newly displaced people. We want water, we want anything from them,” she said.

Arab World

Israeli Strikes in Gaza Kill Two People, Including a Child, Medics Say

FILE PHOTO: Young Palestinians amid the rubble of buildings destroyed during the war, at Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, August 5, 2026. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Young Palestinians amid the rubble of buildings destroyed during the war, at Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, August 5, 2026. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa/File Photo
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Israeli Strikes in Gaza Kill Two People, Including a Child, Medics Say

FILE PHOTO: Young Palestinians amid the rubble of buildings destroyed during the war, at Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, August 5, 2026. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Young Palestinians amid the rubble of buildings destroyed during the war, at Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, August 5, 2026. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa/File Photo

Israeli airstrikes hit a vehicle, killing at least two Palestinians, including a child, and wounding seven others in the northern Gaza Strip neighborhood of Sheikh Radwan on Tuesday, the territory's health officials said.

The Israeli military said it had struck a militant in the area, without elaborating.

Witnesses said some of the casualties resulted from a second strike that hit near a group of people who rushed to help in the rescue. A video, that wasn't immediately verified by Reuters, showed a missile exploding near at least five men.

Palestinians earlier held funerals in Gaza for two people who were killed by Israeli strikes a day ago, Ahmed Al-Batsh and

Rafat Zummar.

Batsh was a local Hamas commander, according to Hamas sources and the Israeli military. Medics said Batsh died in an attack on his vehicle in northern Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military said in separate statements that it had killed both men, and it described Zummar also as a Hamas commander. Hamas didn't immediately comment on Zummar's affiliation.

Relatives and friends paid farewell to Batsh's body draped in a white shroud and a Hamas green flag inside Gaza City's Al Shifa Hospital. An M16 assault rifle was placed on top of the body.

"Israel thinks... it will eliminate the resistance and the spirit of jihad (devotion) within us," said Khalil Al-Batsh, a relative of the dead Hamas militant, of the killing.

"I tell them that this cowardly operation only strengthens our people's determination to continue on this path,” he told Reuters at the funeral.

An October 2025, US-backed, ceasefire halted large-scale fighting in Gaza, but it has not ended Israeli strikes and there has been little progress on steps towards permanent peace.

Hamas accuses Israel of violating the ceasefire and undermining efforts to implement US President Donald Trump's broader plan to end the Gaza conflict, which includes the Israeli withdrawal from the strip and the disarmament of Hamas.

Israel says Hamas has been violating the deal.

More than 1,300 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect, according to the territory's health officials, while the Israeli military says four Israeli soldiers have been killed.

Hamas does not usually disclose information about fatalities among its fighters.