The Digester

Iraq suffers nationwide blackout as US urges citizens to leave

Mar 5th 2026

Iraq's national power grid collapsed Wednesday, plunging all governorates into darkness as the US Embassy ordered American nationals to leave amid escalating strikes and retaliatory attacks in the region.

  • Iraq's Ministry of Electricity said the entire national power system shut down after all transmission lines and generating stations went offline simultaneously.
  • Authorities have not confirmed the cause of the grid failure amid a rapidly escalating regional conflict.
  • The outage came during a week of US-Israeli operations against Iran and retaliatory strikes by Iran and allied militias.
  • Explosions were reported in Erbil and pro-Iranian groups have claimed attacks near Erbil, the Al-Harir base, and the US Victoria base in Baghdad.
  • The US Embassy in Baghdad urged American citizens to depart Iraq immediately and to shelter in place until it is safe to leave.
  • The State Department had already ordered non-emergency US government employees to leave and kept Iraq at Level 4 Do Not Travel.

Sources

turkiyetoday.com