South Sudan Rebels Seize Oil Workers, Demand Firm's Exit
South Sudanese rebels said on Monday they had kidnapped four oil workers including a Pakistani national, in a bid to force their Chinese and Malaysian consortium to leave the country. The fighters loyal to former vice president Riek Machar said they had seized the four working for DAR Petroleum Operating Company from Upper Nile State on Saturday - the second group of oil workers abducted this month. There was no immediate comment from DAR, a consortium including China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), China's Sinopec and Malaysia's Petronas.
Sunni Insurgents Close in on Iraq's Biggest Refinery
Sunni insurgents from an al Qaeda splinter group extended their control from the northern city of Mosul on Wednesday to an area further south that includes Iraq's biggest oil refinery in a devastating show of strength against the Shi'ite-led government. Security sources said militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) - Sunni militants waging sectarian war on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian frontier - drove into the town of Baiji late on Tuesday in armed vehicles, torching the court house and police station after freeing prisoners.