Tag: Iraq

Three members of the same family and two other people were killed in violence in the capital and northern Iraq on Sunday, including a...

Turkish security forces killed at least 12 Kurdish militants after they were spotted crossing the border from Iraq, the military said on Saturday, while...

A car bomb exploded on Friday near a police station south of Baghdad where, a day earlier, a suicide attacker killed 24 policemen, a...

A suicide attacker blew up a bomb-filled car at a police station south of Baghdad, killing 21 policemen on Thursday, as Iraqi forces braced...

A suicide attacker blew up a bomb-filled car at a police station south of Baghdad, killing 21 policemen on Thursday, as Iraqi forces braced...

CAMP LIBERTY - US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday hailed the "extraordinary" progress made in Iraq, and said Baghdad set an example for democracy in the region.
Gates, who arrived in Baghdad on Wednesday evening, met with Lieutenant General Lloyd Austin, commander of US military forces in Iraq, before going into talks with Iraqi leaders.
He was due to meet Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani, and expected to travel to northern Iraq for talks

TIKRIT - Gunmen wearing military uniforms and suicide vests were locked in a shoot-out with security forces on Tuesday after storming a Tikrit building in an attack that left at least 20 dead and 65 injured, Iraq officials said.
The gunmen swarmed into the building in the city of Tikrit, about 160 kilometres north of Baghdad, immediately after a suicide bomber detonated his payload and cleared the way, a police official said.A car bomb exploded shortly afterwards as police

LONDON - Seven out of 10 Britons think coalition forces enforcing a no-fly zone in Libya could get sucked into another Iraq-style conflict, a poll showed on Tuesday. The ComRes poll carried out for the Independent newspaper found 47 percent think the government was wrong to launch air strikes against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, while 43 percent approve of the decision.
Tuesday's poll found that 71 percent of those questioned feared the intervention could drag on, despite Prime

BAGHDAD - Iraq said on Monday it supported international intervention in Libya, but influential Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr condemned it and said Western states should avoid civilian casualties.
Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Iraq supported the UN Security Council resolution that authorised the intervention, and would back any action as long as it was authorised by the United Nations.
"The Iraqi government supports the international efforts to prevent any acts of

BASRA - Thousands of Iraqis protested in the southern oil hub of Basra on Saturday against the presence of Saudi troops in Bahrain, which has highlighted Iraq's own sectarian divide after years of war. Anger has been mounting among Shias in Iraq, Lebanon and Iran over the movement of troops from Sunni Arab states to help Bahrain's Sunni royal family stifle pro-democracy demonstrations by majority Shias. Bahrain said on Friday more troops were coming from other Gulf states to help

BASRA - A roadside bomb killed six people and wounded 12 aboard a bus in Iraq's southern port city of Basra on Sunday, a provincial official said. The blast targeted a passing US military convoy but instead struck the bus and wrecked it, the head of Basra provincial council's security committee, Ali al-Ghanimi, said. Women and children were among the casualties of the 10:00 am (0700 GMT) attack near a train station in the al-Maakal district of north Basra, Ghanimi said, but it was

RAMADI - A suicide bomber blew himself up inside a bank in the northwestern Iraqi city of Haditha on Thursday, killing nine people including three policemen, the town's mayor said. Eight other people, all civilians, were wounded in the midday blast at a branch of the state-owned Al-Rafidain bank in Haditha, 210 kilometres (130 miles) northeast of Baghdad, Mayor Bassim Naji said.
"Nine people have been killed in the suicide attack at Al-Rafidain bank," Naji told reporters. A

BAGHDAD - Iraq has agreed to postpone an Arab League summit scheduled for March 29 in Baghdad at the request of Arab foreign ministers because of turmoil in some countries in the region, a government official said on Thursday. Countries in the Middle East and north Africa have been rocked by protests against political repression and economic hardship which resulted in the ousting of long-serving rulers in Tunisia and Egypt. "It has been agreed to postpone holding the Arab summit for a

BAGHDAD - An Iraqi court on Monday sentenced a British security guard to life in jail for killing a fellow Briton and an Australian in Baghdad, the first conviction of a Western contractor since the 2003 invasion. Danny Fitzsimons, 30, could have received the death penalty for the August 2009 shooting in the Iraqi capital's heavily-fortified Green Zone.
His lawyer said that the life sentence equated to 20 years in Iraqi law, and added that he would appeal the verdict. "The court

BAGHDAD - Iraq's prime minister warned his cabinet on Sunday to shape up within 100 days or face "changes", as protest organisers called for a fresh set of rallies and religious leaders demanded reforms.
Nuri al-Maliki's remarks came after a third provincial governor stepped down following a series of demonstrations across the country, the biggest of which were on Friday when thousands took to the streets to rail against poor public services, rampant corruption and high

BAGHDAD - One of Al Qaeda leaders in Iraq, identified as the militant group's "war minister", has been killed in a raid, a senior Iraqi official said on Friday. Noman Salman, also know as Al-Nasser Lideen Allah Abu Suleiman, the war minister for the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), was killed on Thursday night in Hit, about 130 km west of Baghdad, a spokesman for the Baghdad operations command said.
"Based on intelligence, Iraqi security forces carried out the raid that killed him.

BAGHDAD - Iraq's government on Tuesday proposed new legislation that would slash the salaries of politicians and top officials, just days after MPs approved smaller pay cuts in a bid to head off protests. The mooted changes are the latest attempt by authorities to respond to demonstrations that have taken place across Iraq in cities that are variously Sunni, Shiite or Kurdish, railing against corruption, poor public services and high unemployment.
"The cabinet has decided to