Coronavirus outbreak compounds Iraq’s perfect storm of crises

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Anti-government demonstrations erupted in Baghdad on Oct. 1 over a lack of jobs, poor public services and corruption. Protesters have long-demanded a snap election, putting added pressure on the beleaguered government. (AFP)
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Updated 30 March 2020
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Coronavirus outbreak compounds Iraq’s perfect storm of crises

  • Rising cases puts weak healthcare system under pressure amid political turmoil and economic uncertainty
  • More than 500 infections and at least 40 deaths have been reported so far in different governorates

ERBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan: As Iraq faces several severe crises simultaneously, some see the makings of a perfect storm that could prove too much for Iraq’s dysfunctional government to handle.

An unchecked outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) could prove the proverbial last straw for a country grappling with political turmoil, dwindling oil revenues, deteriorating government services and geopolitical skirmishing.

“Iraq is on the cusp of melting down,” Nicholas Heras, the Middle East Portfolio Manager at The Institute for the Study of War, told Arab News.

“The Iraqi state institutions were already collapsing before the fall in oil prices, and Iraq’s health infrastructure is too much in shambles to handle a big surge in COVID-19 cases.”

The country had reported 506 cinfirmed cases and 42 deaths as of March 29.

Heras attributes Iraq’s particular vulnerability to these crises to the rampant corruption that has prevailed in the country’s post-2003 political establishment.

“Iraq is on the verge of being a failed state,” he said.

The fall in the international price of oil will hit the Iraqi economy hard. Iraq depends on its oil revenues to fund its bloated public sector payroll, which many Iraqis rely upon for their livelihood.

The steep decline in the price of oil means it will not be able to do that.

FASTFACT

In Numbers

13 Iraq’s Fragile States Index rank (out of 178)

5.5% Health expenditure as fraction of GDP

27 Probability of dying under 5 years (per 1,000 births)

68 Life expectancy at birth (Male)

72 Life expectancy at birth (Female)

This closely coincided with another series of crises that have afflicted this country in the first three months of this decade alone.

Iraqis mounted an unprecedented six-month-long protest campaign that began last October against government corruption that has been endemic in the post-2003 political order.

Furthermore, political disputes have left the country without a prime minister since Adil Abdul-Mahdi resigned four months ago amid pressure from protesters.

Three weeks ago, Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi was nominated but failed to secure approval from parliament and was rejected by the protest movement.

Adnan al-Zurfi, former governor of Najaf, is the present prime minister-designate but faces stiff opposition from Iran-backed factions in the Iraqi parliament.

Joel Wing, an Iraq analyst and author of the Musings on Iraq blog, also believes that Iraq is facing a very severe set of crises which he believes spell disaster for the troubled country.

“On the political front, the ruling parties have been unable to agree upon a new prime minister which leaves the government completely in limbo,” he said.

“There is no leadership when that is exactly what the nation needs.”

The collapse in oil prices not only means that the Iraqi government will be unable to pay public sector salaries but is also incapable of meeting other basic costs.

“Because of the government crisis, there is no planning going on for this situation,” Wing said.

“Instead, you get people like the Central Bank chief saying everything is fine, and parliament is sitting on the draft 2020 budget.”

On top of this, Iraq also has to deal with the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Wing echoed Heras when he pointed out that Baghdad lacks any way of dealing with it, given the present political and economic situation.

Even if it does have a plan, he added, it might well lack the money to implement it.

“This is a perfect storm which the country will find it very hard to pull itself out of, especially because all three issues are interconnected,” he said.

Aside from Daesh remnants still operating on its soil and continuing to pose a security threat, Iraq would likely become a major battlefield if war breaks out between the US and Iran.

The US-Iran standoff in Iraq has shown worrying signs of boiling over into open conflict in recent months.




A purpose-built sealed hospital bed built by a resident of Iraq's southern city of Basra to isolate COVID-19 coronavirus disease patients. (Photo by Hussein FALEH / AFP)

After the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah Iraqi militia killed a US contractor in a rocket attack in late December, the US retaliated, killing several members of the group’s militia in airstrikes.

Then, on Jan. 8, the US assassinated both Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ extraterritorial Quds Force, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, Kataib Hezbollah’s commander, in a drone strike near Baghdad International Airport.

Iran responded with missile strikes on two US bases, one in Anbar and the other in Iraqi Kurdistan, a few days later, leaving several US troops with brain injuries.

The US did not respond.

Calls for the expulsion of US troops from Iraq intensified by Iran-backed factions in Iraq’s parliament and other Iraqis who fear their country becoming a bloody battlefield in the US-Iran proxy war.

On March 11, Iraqi militia rocket attacks again struck a base with US personnel – killing two American troops and one British troop – and the US once again retaliated by bombing a Kataib Hezbollah target.

However, that airstrike did not seem to inflict any casualties or significant damage against the group.




An Iraqi Civil Defense worker disinfects the streets of Sadr City in Baghdad on March 24, 2020 as a precaution against the coronavirus. (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP)

More tit-for-tat exchanges could occur in the near future, which would likely make the situation in Iraq even more volatile.

Lawk Ghafuri, a reporter on Iraqi affairs for the Kurdish news agency Rudaw, argues that the US-Iran tensions in Iraq constitute the most serious crisis facing Iraq today.

“US-Iran tensions are here to stay, as we now see new Iranian-backed groups are rising in Iraq,” Ghafuri told Arab News.

He noted that the US recently began to reposition its troops in Iraq so they can deal with the increasingly deadly threat of rocket attacks from these groups more adequately.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus outbreak is likely to affect Iraq more seriously in the near future.

“From today onward, the coronavirus will also worsen in Iraq as it did in Iran because people are ignoring the threats of this virus,” Ghafuri said.

Turning a blind eye to government restrictions, Shiite pilgrims visited the shrine of Imam Musa Kazim on March 21, sparking fears that the virus will spread more rapidly in the coming days and weeks.

Kyle Orton, an independent Middle East analyst, notes that the multiple crises Iraq face today put the country in a “uniquely precarious position.”

“If the post-2003 Iraqi state is going to give way, now is the moment,” he told Arab News.

That being said, Orton also believes that there is still a chance that “the centre will hold” since the protest movement has been significantly undermined by Iranian-backed paramilitaries and the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, relieving that primary source of domestic pressure on the Iraqi government.




An Iraqi woman wearing a mask against COVID-19 sells vegetables in the streets of Sadr City in Baghdad on March 24, 2020. (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP)

He also doubts that the US is seriously contesting Iranian power in Iraq despite Soleimani’s assassination, which he said it was “an exception” to US President Donald Trump’s rule of not forcibly combating “Iranian imperialism” in Iraq.

“A US-Iran contest for Baghdad could be messy for the system; unhindered Iranian dominance has a short-term systemic ‘stability’, even as it means greater corruption and repression that will surely re-energize the protest movement at some point in the future,” Orton said.

The inherent failures in Iraq’s post-2003 political system may bring about its downfall as it is failing to meet the most fundamental needs of the Iraqi people.

Wing explained that this system mainly consisted of elites who had a greater interest in enriching themselves through the monopolization of state resources.

These elites were able to retain their hold on power by creating patronage networks that they provided lucrative contracts and government jobs to in return for support and loyalty.

“The oil wealth also allowed the ruling parties not to be responsive to the public because it didn’t need it for taxes even though the country has a democratic system,” he said.

“Instead, the elite felt that the people should be dependent upon them because they controlled the state and jobs.”

This arrangement may well be unraveling since the government can no longer generate enough oil revenue to pay its employees.

Wing also noted that this comes as “it is being called on to deal with the public’s health when it has never shown any real interest in the people’s demands, and the parties have become so divided they can’t even decide who will rule.”

If the post-2003 political order finally does implode it’s unclear what’s in store for Iraq in the not-too-distant future.


UAE and Jordan condemn terror attack on Pakistani military convoy that killed 13 soldiers

Updated 11 sec ago
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UAE and Jordan condemn terror attack on Pakistani military convoy that killed 13 soldiers

  • A further 24 people were injured, 14 of them civilians, when a car bomb exploded near a bomb-disposal vehicle in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday
  • Emirati Foreign Ministry sends condolences to families of the victims and the people of Pakistan following the ‘cowardly attack’

LONDON: Authorities in the UAE and Jordan have strongly condemned a terrorist attack on a military convoy in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan in which 13 soldiers were killed and at least 24 people were injured.

The Emirati Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent its condolences to the families of the victims, and all the people of Pakistan, following the “heinous and cowardly attack,” along its best wishes for a speedy recovery of those who were injured.

It added that the UAE firmly rejects all forms of terrorism and violence that undermine security and stability.

Jordan’s Foreign Ministry similarly condemned the attack and expressed its solidarity with Pakistan during this terrible time.

A suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into the military convoy on Saturday and it detonated near a bomb disposal vehicle. Of the 24 people who were injured, 14 are civilians.

Armed group Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack. It was one of the deadliest, single-day incidents in recent months targeting security forces in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.


Qatari emir, Spanish king meet on sidelines of UN investment conference in Seville

Updated 30 June 2025
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Qatari emir, Spanish king meet on sidelines of UN investment conference in Seville

  • King Felipe expressed his desire to strengthen relations and support joint investments with Qatar
  • He reiterated Spain’s solidarity with Qatar and condemned the Iranian attack on Al-Udeid Air Base last week

LONDON: Qatari emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, met King Felipe VI of Spain in Seville on the sidelines of a UN-organized international investment conference.

The 4th International Conference on Financing for Development began on Monday and will continue until July 3, bringing together global leaders to discuss urgent reforms necessary for financing sustainable development.

King Felipe expressed his desire to strengthen relations and support joint investments through small and medium-sized enterprises following the recent economic agreements between Qatar and Spain.

He also reiterated Spain’s solidarity with Qatar and condemned the Iranian attack on Al-Udeid Air Base last week, praising Doha’s role in facilitating a ceasefire agreement between Iran and Israel.

Sheikh Tamim emphasized Qatar’s commitment to enhancing cooperation with Spain across cultural, educational and security fields to serve the common interests of both countries, the Qatar News Agency reported.


Israeli settlers hold wedding ceremony inside Al-Aqsa Mosque under police protection

Updated 30 June 2025
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Israeli settlers hold wedding ceremony inside Al-Aqsa Mosque under police protection

  • The Jerusalem Governorate deemed the move ‘provocative and humiliating’

LONDON: Israeli authorities permitted a wedding engagement ceremony for Jewish settlers within the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque in the occupied Old City of East Jerusalem on Monday.

The Palestinian Authority’s Jerusalem Governorate deemed the move “provocative and humiliating,” describing it as a transformation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque into what resembles a public hall for celebrations by extremist settlers.

“(This is) a flagrant violation of the sanctity of the mosque, a serious provocation of the feelings of Muslims, and a deliberate attempt to impose a new reality that erases the Islamic identity of the site and paves the way for its division temporally and spatially,” the Jerusalem Governorate said.

On Monday, settlers, accompanied by Israeli police, toured the Al-Aqsa compound. Police prevented Palestinians from approaching the settlers to disrupt the ceremony, according to the Wafa news agency.

The Jerusalem Governorate said that Israeli policies aim to impose sovereignty on Al-Aqsa Mosque, stressing that these repeated provocations contradict international law and the 2016 UNESCO resolution, which recognized Al-Aqsa Mosque as an Islamic heritage site and called for its preservation.

Since 1967, the Jerusalem Endowments Council, which operates under Jordan’s Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs, has been the legal authority responsible for managing and regulating the affairs of Al-Aqsa.

However, this status quo has been challenged in recent years by extremist settlers who regularly tour the site under the protection of Israeli police and are often accompanied by government officials and far-right ministers and activists.


UK MPs demand Ukraine-style visa route for Gazans

Updated 30 June 2025
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UK MPs demand Ukraine-style visa route for Gazans

  • Letter to PM: ‘The same generosity should be extended to Palestinian families’
  • Death toll ‘likely to be exponentially higher’ than official figure due to collapse of local govt, health systems

LONDON: MPs in the UK are calling on the government to launch a visa system for Palestinians in Gaza with family already living in Britain.

Sixty-seven politicians have written to Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper asking for a Gaza Family Scheme mirroring the Ukraine Family Scheme established in 2022 to help refugees escape the war with Russia. It allowed Ukrainians to live and work in the UK for up to three years.

“We believe that the same generosity should be extended to Palestinian families,” said the letter, seen by Sky News.

Signatories include 35 Labour MPs and members of the House of Lords, as well as several people currently suspended from the governing party, including its former leader Jeremy Corbyn and former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell. 

All four sitting members of the Green Party have also signed, alongside former Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron and the Bishop of Chelmsford Dr. Guli Francis-Dehquani.

The letter accuses Israel of “shattering the temporary ceasefire agreement” with Hamas in Gaza, and of conducting a “campaign of bombardment and military assaults, and targeting of people accessing humanitarian aid.”

MP Marsha de Cordova, who helped organize the letter alongside the Gaza Families Reunited campaign, told Sky News that the Ukraine visa scheme “was the right response to a brutal war,” and that establishing one for Gazans “would be an extension of those same principles, showing that this government is steadfast in its commitment to helping families experiencing the worst horrors of war.

“It is time for the government to act now to help British Palestinians get their loved ones to safety, enabling them to rebuild their lives.”

The letter said the proposed scheme would let Palestinians reunite with “people they may never see again unless urgent action is taken,” and many Gazans trying to reach the UK “struggled to navigate the immigration system.”

It added that efforts to secure visas have been made “impossible due to the destruction of the visa application centre in Gaza and blockade of the Rafah crossing.”

The letter said the death toll in Gaza, reported by Palestinian authorities as numbering at least 53,000 people, “is likely to be exponentially higher” due to the collapse of local government and health systems in the enclave.

Ghassan Ghaben, spokesperson for Gaza Families Reunited, told Sky News: “Family unity is an undeniable human right.”

He urged more MPs, including Conservatives, to add their names to efforts to help get Palestinians to the UK, saying: “We are still waiting for the new government to do the right thing. We, as Palestinians in the UK, simply want the opportunity to bring our loved ones from Gaza to safety, until it is safe to return.”

A government spokesperson told Sky News: “The death and destruction in Gaza is intolerable. Since day one, we have been clear that we need to see an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages cruelly detained by Hamas, better protection of civilians, significantly more aid consistently entering Gaza, and a path to long-term peace and stability.

“There are a range of routes available for Palestinians who wish to join family members in the UK.”


Israel strikes pound Gaza, killing 60, ahead of US talks on ceasefire

Updated 30 June 2025
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Israel strikes pound Gaza, killing 60, ahead of US talks on ceasefire

  • Israel’s Dermer due in US for talks on Gaza, Iran, wider deals
  • Israeli tanks push into Gaza City suburb, residents say

CAIRO/JERUSALEM: Israeli strikes killed at least 60 people across Gaza on Monday in some of the heaviest attacks in weeks as Israeli officials were due in Washington for a new ceasefire push by US President Donald Trump.
A day after Trump called to “Make the deal in Gaza, get the hostages back,” Israel’s strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer, a confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s, was traveling to Washington for talks on Iran and Gaza, according to an Israeli official and a source familiar with the matter.
Dermer was expected to begin meetings with Trump administration officials on Tuesday, the source in Washington said.
But on the ground in the Palestinian enclave, there was no sign of fighting letting up. The Israeli military issued evacuation orders on Monday to residents in large districts in the northern Gaza Strip, forcing a new wave of displacement.
“Explosions never stopped; they bombed schools and homes. It felt like earthquakes,” said Salah, 60, a father of five children, from Gaza City. “In the news we hear a ceasefire is near, on the ground we see death and we hear explosions.”
“Look at us, we are not just numbers and not just pictures. Every day martyrs like this,” said displaced woman Amani Swalha, standing in the rubble of a Gaza city school hit in a strike. “It is our right to live, and to live with dignity, not like this in humiliation.”
Israeli tanks pushed into the eastern areas of Zeitoun suburb in Gaza City and shelled several areas in the north, while aircraft bombed at least four schools after ordering hundreds of families sheltering inside to leave, residents said.
At least 58 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Monday, health authorities said, including 10 people killed in Zeitoun and at least 13 killed southwest of Gaza City. Medics said most of the 13 were hit by gunfire, but residents also reported an airstrike.
Twenty-two people, including women, children and a local journalist were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a beachfront cafe in Gaza City, medics said. The Palestinian Journalist Syndicate said more than 220 journalists had been killed in Gaza since the war began in October 2023.
The Israeli military said it struck militant targets in northern Gaza, including command and control centers, after taking steps to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.
There was no immediate word from Israel on the reported casualties southwest of the Gaza Strip and the beachfront cafe.
The bombardment followed new evacuation orders to vast areas in the north, where Israeli forces had operated before and left behind wide-scale destruction. The military ordered people there to head south, saying that it planned to fight Hamas militants operating in northern Gaza, including in the heart of Gaza City.
“Make the deal”
Alongside talks on Gaza ceasefire prospects, Dermer also plans to discuss Netanyahu’s possible visit to the White House in coming weeks, according to the source familiar with the matter.
In Israel, Netanyahu’s security cabinet was expected to convene to discuss the next steps in Gaza.
On Friday, Israel’s military chief said the present ground operation was close to having achieved its goals, and on Sunday, Netanyahu said new opportunities had opened up for recovering the hostages, 20 of whom are believed to still be alive.
Palestinian and Egyptian sources with knowledge of the latest ceasefire efforts said that mediators Qatar and Egypt have stepped up their contacts with the two warring sides, but that no date has been set yet for a new round of truce talks.
A Hamas official said that progress depends on Israel changing its position and agreeing to end the war and withdraw from Gaza. Israel says it can end the war only when Hamas is disarmed and dismantled. Hamas refuses to lay down its arms.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Israel has agreed to a US-proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage deal, and put the onus on Hamas. He told reporters: “Israel is serious in its will to reach a hostage deal and ceasefire in Gaza.”
Austrian Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger, speaking in Jerusalem alongside her Israeli counterpart, said the humanitarian situation in Gaza was “unbearable.”
“The suffering of civilians is increasingly burdening Israel’s relations with Europe. A ceasefire must be agreed upon,” she said, calling for the unconditional release of hostages by Hamas and for Israel to allow the uninterrupted flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Israel says it continues to allow aid into Gaza and accuses Hamas of stealing it. The group denies that accusation and says Israel uses hunger as a weapon against the Gaza population.
The US has proposed a 60-day ceasefire and the release of half the hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and the remains of other Palestinians. Hamas would release the remaining hostages as part of a deal that guarantees ending the war.
The war began when Hamas fighters stormed into Israel on October 7 2023, killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took 251 hostages back to Gaza in a surprise attack that led to Israel’s single deadliest day.
Israel’s subsequent military assault has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry, displaced almost the whole 2.3 million population and plunged the enclave into a humanitarian crisis.
More than 80 percent of the territory is now an Israeli-militarized zone or under displacement orders, according to the UN.