Baghdad

Three Americans have reportedly been kidnapped by ‘militias’ in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. The U.S. government is aware of reports and is working with Iraqi authorities to find them, a U.S. State Department official said on Sunday. Their disappearance was first reported by the a pan-Arab news channel Al- Arabiya. RT reports: While their identities have not yet been confirmed, Iraqi independent news agency Akad News said a US serviceman and a translator are among those who were captured in the south of Baghdad.

Last week, two attacks on Sunni mosques in Iraq suggested a violent sectarian backlash may be in the cards for the war-torn country on the heels of Saudi Arabi's move to execute prominent Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr. 

As we noted in "Iraq Says Mosque Bombings Were False Flag ISIS Attacks," the sectarian issue is particularly divisive in post-Ba’thist Iraq and thus it wouldn't exactly be a surprise if the country' Shiite majority lashed out at Sunnis following al-Nimr's rather untimely demise. 

Thousands took to the streets of  Baghdad  and Southern Shi’ite cities in Iraq on Monday in protest over the Saudi execution of Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. Demonstrators carrying portraits of Nimr rallied outside the Green Zone, a heavily fortified district that houses government departments and diplomatic representations, including the newly reopened Saudi embassy.Police guarding the zone pushed back a group that attempted to cross a line of barbed wire as they chanted “Damned, damned be Al Saud!,” referring to the Saudi ruling family.

In our classic piece “ISIS Oil Trade Full Frontal: "Raqqa's Rockefellers", Bilal Erdogan, KRG Crude, And The Israel Connection,” we discussed how Masoud Barzani and the Iraqi Kurds transport some 600,000 b/d of crude to the Turkish port of Ceyhan in defiance of SOMO amid an ongoing budget dispute between Baghdad and Erbil.

Turkey facilitates this trade and we suggested that ISIS (which Turkey is suspected of supporting in order that the group might continue to destabilize Assad) may be using the same networks to get its illicit oil to market. 

"They can resort to the U.N. Security Council, that is their natural right, but this is not an honest step,” Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday, referencing Baghdad’s move to appeal to a “higher” authority in an increasingly tense standoff with Ankara stemming from the latter’s decision to send several hundred troops and 25 tanks to Bashiqa (just northeast of Mosul) a week ago.