Anbar

AMMAN: Jordan and Iraq on Wednesday reopened their only border crossing, saying security had been restored three years after the Islamic State group seized control of frontier areas. In a joint statement, the two countries' governments said the crossing, called Turaibil in Iraq and Al-Karameh in Jordan, was reopened after it was "secured... against attacks by criminal gangs". The border crossing is part of a crucial route linking the Iraqi and Jordanian capitals, and its reopening comes after Iraqi forces managed to…

WASHINGTON: A US-led coalition air strike has killed a senior Islamic State leader in Iraq's Anbar province, along with three other IS jihadists, the Pentagon said Monday.

BAGHDAD: Islamic State militants in Iraq took partial control of a water dam and military barracks guarding it in the western Anbar province after fierce fighting through the night that continued on Saturday, security sources and witnesses said.

ANBAR, IRAQ: Iran's supreme leader accused the United States on Sunday of trying to retake control of Iraq by exploiting sectarian rivalries, as Sunni insurgents drove towards Baghdad from new strongholds along the Syrian border. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's condemnation of U.S. action came three days after President Barack Obama offered to send 300 military advisers to help the Iraqi government. Khamenei may want to block any U.S. choice of a new prime minister after grumbling in Washington about Shi'ite premier Nuri…

RAMADI: Gunmen occupied a university in Iraq's western province of Anbar on Saturday, taking hundreds of students and their professors hostage inside the campus, security sources said. After fighting their way past the guards, the militants managed to break into Anbar University in the provincial capital Ramadi overnight and planted bombs behind them to prevent security forces from advancing. Security forces surrounded the university and exchanged fire with militants patrolling the rooftops with sniper rifles. Sources in…