ARBIL (Reuters) - Fuel shortages in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region will last for at least another week, government officials said on Sunday, as sweeping advances by Sunni Muslim militants further south put a heavy strain on supply lines.Queues of motorists, some up to 2 km (1.2 miles) long, have been one of the most visible signs of the militants' battlefield successes in Iraq for the people of Kurdistan's regional capital Arbil, a city filled with new office blocks and Western oil workers barely an hour's drive from Mosul, now in rebel hands.
The fuel shortages have exacerbated pressure on an economy already strained by central government budget cuts and virtual civil war on Iraqi Kurdistan's southern border.