BAGHDAD - Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has issued a high security alert for possible terror attacks, as the U.S. moves to formally end its combat mission in the next few days.
Mr. Maliki issued a statement Friday urging security forces and civilians to “exercise the highest degree of caution.”  He said a “criminal alliance” between […]

BAGHDAD - More than a dozen explosions have rocked several Iraqi cities, causing widespread damage and havoc.
Ambulances transported casualties from more than a dozen car-bombings across Iraq.  The worst day of violence in many months.  The magnitude of the coordinated attacks, killing and wounding dozens, caught Iraqi security forces off guard and left even war-weary […]

WASHINGTON - The U.S. military says it now has fewer than 50,000 troops in Iraq, as it closes in on an official end to combat operations.
In a statement Tuesday, the military said it had completed the drawdown ahead of an August 31 deadline set by President Barack Obama.
U.S. forces will shift to training Iraqi security […]

WASHINGTON - The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq says Iran is fueling instability in neighboring Iraq by funding and training Shi’ite extremist groups in the country.
General Ray Odierno told CNN on Sunday that Iran does not want Iraq to become a strong democratic country. He said Iran would rather see Iraq become a “weak […]

WASHINGTON - Two weeks ahead of a schedule set by President Barack Obama, the last large U.S. combat brigade has left Iraq.  Pentagon officials stress that some American combat forces remain in the country ahead of an August 31st date to formally transition the U.S. presence to an advisory and training operation.
News agencies and television […]

WASHINGTON - The United States has turned over some of its highest-profile Iraqi prisoners to the Iraqi government.
Iraqi authorities say former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz was handed over on Wednesday, along with another 25 officials from the inner circle of former dictator Saddam Hussein.
Iraqi officials say the prisoners had been held at Camp Cropper, […]

BAGHDAD - A wave of attacks across Iraq killed more than 100 people Monday, and wounded about 300 others.
The violence began before dawn, with gunmen in speeding cars killing soldiers and police at checkpoints across Baghdad.   The assailants used silencers, a new gangland-style twist to their attacks.
In the hours that followed, two bombs, also targeting […]

WASHINGTON - The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, who soon will end a total of four years in the country on several tours of duty, says it will not be clear for five to 10 years whether the American effort there was truly worthwhile, and that the seating of a new government in the […]

WASHINGTON - Iraqi and U.S. officials say a joint military operation has killed the two top leaders of al-Qaida in Iraq.  Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced the deaths and showed reporters in Baghdad pictures of two bloody bodies.  The top U.S. general in Iraq also confirmed the deaths. 
The U.S. military says the two men were […]

BAGHDAD - Violence in Iraq’s capital has killed at least 24 Iraqis at the start of voting in the country’s first parliamentary elections since 2005.
An Iraqi Interior Ministry source says at least 12 people were killed and eight wounded when an explosion destroyed a building in Baghdad.
An earlier blast as polls opened killed four people […]

BAGHDAD - Iraq’s government says it has executed Saddam Hussein’s notorious henchman and cousin, widely known as “Chemical Ali,” for crimes against humanity.
Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh says Hassan al-Majid was executed Monday.  He had been sentenced to death by hanging four times by Iraqi courts, most recently in a verdict earlier this month.
Al-Majid was […]

BAGHDAD - An Iraqi court has sentenced a notorious cousin of former dictator Saddam Hussein to death by hanging for ordering the gassing of Iraqi Kurds in 1988.
It is the 4th death sentence handed down to Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known as “Chemical Ali” for his role in the poison gas attack in the northeastern […]

BAGHDAD - A wave of car bombings rocked the Iraqi capital Baghdad, Tuesday morning, killing more than 100 people and wounding dozens of others. It was the worst violence to hit Baghdad, since October, when two massive car-bombs killed 155 people.
Ambulances ferried the injured to hospitals across Baghdad, after a wave of powerful car-bombings struck […]

BAGHDAD - An al-Qaida-linked group in Iraq has claimed responsibility for Sunday’s devastating car bombings in Baghdad that killed at least 155 people and wounded more than 500 others.
The militant group named the Islamic State in Iraq announced it was behind the twin suicide bombings in a statement posted on a militant Web site. 
Iraqi Prime […]

BAGHDAD - Iraqi officials say the toll from Sunday’s two powerful car bombs in central Baghdad has risen to 155 killed and more than 500 others wounded.  
The near-simultaneous attacks hit near the heavily-guarded Green zone and appeared to target a provincial government building and the Ministry of Justice.
The blasts caused heavy damage to the […]

SHARM EL SHEIKH - Tense relations between Iraq and Syria set the backdrop for a meeting on Iraqi security Wednesday. Officials from Iraq and its neighbors attended an annual conference, hosted this year by Egypt, on how other countries can help improve conditions or, at least, not make them worse.  

The Iraqi government has been […]

WASHINGTON - Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is blaming Sunni insurgents for Wednesday’s wave of bomb and mortar attacks in Baghdad. At least 95 people were killed and hundreds more wounded. The strikes targeted two key government buildings, the Foreign and Finance Ministries. And the attacks continued on Thursday when a bomb exploded in central […]

BAGHDAD - Multiple explosions in the Iraqi capital have killed 95 people and wounded at least 310 others, in the worst day of violence in Baghdad since U.S. forces left urban areas in June.

One of the biggest bombs went off outside Iraq’s Foreign Ministry, causing casualties both inside and outside the heavily fortified building.

The […]

BAGHDAD - The top U.S. commander in Iraq says he wants to station more American soldiers in disputed areas of northern Iraq where there has been a recent spike in violence.
General Ray Odierno said Monday U.S. soldiers would partner with both Iraqi government and Kurdish troops to secure the region marked with tension between Arabs […]

BAGHDAD - Iraq’s planning minister says the country’s first nationwide census in two decades will be postponed indefinitely because of ethnic tensions.
Ali Baban said Sunday the government is technically capable of carrying out the census, but fears it could inflame tensions in northern areas disputed by Arabs and Kurds. He said local political parties in […]

IRBIL - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has met with the president of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, Massoud Barzani, during the second day of his trip to Iraq.
The two held talks in the Kurdish regional capital Irbil on Wednesday as Mr. Gates attempted to bridge the divide between Iraq’s ethnic Kurds and majority Arabs.
On Tuesday, […]

BAGHDAD - Britain said it will withdraw its remaining forces in Iraq to neighboring Kuwait. 
The British Embassy in Baghdad said Tuesday the move is necessary because the Iraqi parliament has failed to pass a deal allowing some British troops to stay beyond the end of July.
The deal would have allowed up to 100 British troops […]

BAGHDAD - The Iraqi government has opened bidding for development rights for some of the country’s massive oil and gas fields.
More than 30 international firms, including U.S. giant Exxon Mobil and China’s CNPC, are vying for a chance to secure service contracts to develop six oil and two gas fields.
The contracts will provide money to […]

BAGHDAD - Police have arrested Iraq’s former trade minister in connection with corruption allegations, after he tried to leave the country.
The chairman of the parliamentary integrity commission, Sabah al-Saedi, told reporters Saturday that ex-minister Falah al-Sudani had tried to escape on a plane headed to the United Arab Emirates, but the flight was ordered to […]