Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr visited the president of the autonomous northern Kurdistan region yesterday seeking to ease tensions between Baghdad and the Kurds that have threatened the coalition government.

Oil production may be booming in Iraq, but punters were being told yesterday not to get their hopes up. While its government announced that its daily output had moved above 3m barrels for the first time since the 1970s, City scribes were warning that the risks of operating in the country were not being taken seriously enough.

Two Turkish soldiers and 15 Kurdish rebels have been killed in clashes in Sirnak, in the country's south-east.

World View: Its three main communities – Shia, Sunni and Kurd – cannot seem to run the country together, and yet none can run it alone

Turkey's air force attacked suspected Kurdish rebel targets across the border in Iraq, the military said Thursday, but Kurdish officials claimed many of the roughly 35 people killed were teenaged smugglers mistaken for guerrillas.

The deal the Americans did with the Shia, Sunni and Kurds was always uneasy

Maliki's demands for handover of rival heighten fears of sectarian strife

US oil supermajor Exxon Mobil is understood to have sounded out London-listed Gulf Keystone Petroleum (GKP) over a possible deal that could value the Kurdistan-focused group at around £7bn.

The US invaded Iraq in 2003 in a show of strength after 9/11 to prove it was the world's sole superpower. But the war demonstrated that the US did not have the political and military might to determine the future of Iraq.

Rioters attacked liquor stores, a massage parlor and hotels after being stirred up by fiery sermons in a predominantly Kurdish city in north Iraq, police officials said today. Pro-government crowds then attacked Islamist party offices in retaliation, they said. 

The British Government waded into the legal battle over control of oil in Kurdistan yesterday, calling on Baghdad to stop obstructing the development of the region's reserves.

Baghdad threatens to throw ExxonMobil out after Kurdistan deal