Iraq News

“I'd love to see the community out there waving at them and welcoming them home”

After more than eight months in Iraq, the Virginia National Guard's 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team will return to Staunton on Thursday. via Staunton Daily News Leader

“It was the third incident in a month. We have lost 19 men while 12 have been injured because of coalition attacks”

More than 100 members of an anti-Qaeda front in central Iraq on Saturday handed their resignations to their US military employers, accusing them of killing 19 of their group, their leader told AFP. via Political Gateway

“I'm new here and I can find out what is happening in Iraqi business and meet people.”

Nattily dressed Iraqi businessmen mingled Saturday with a few of their American counterparts at the first business exposition to be held in Baghdad since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

About 260 vendors _ almost all Iraqi _ set up booths on the ground floor of the Green Zone's al-Rashid Hotel, which still bears the scars of a 2003 rocket attack.

Hundreds of visitors crammed the hallways, picking up brochures and free candies from the booths of businesses mostly reflecting the immediate needs of Iraq: construction, security, logistics and raw goods. Read more

Three Iraqi policemen are killed when U.S. helicopters opened fire on a local police unit south of Baghdad. via Reuters

“Everyone should know, that the official security forces represent the country. And it is the one side that has the right to bear arms and impose security”

BAGHDAD - Attacks by insurgents and rival sectarian militias have fallen up to 80 percent in Baghdad and concrete blast walls that divide the capital can soon be removed, a senior Iraqi military ... via Reuters

“We are very serious, and we are going to go all the way to the end of the path. We don't want you to leave.”

This small, rural village in the Diyala Province north of Baghdad experienced a revolution a month ago. via Daily News

“Because he was close to the crowd he managed to kill four people. In all 17 people were wounded.”

February 16. KAZINFORM. A double attack yesterday by two suicide bombers outside a crowded Shiite mosque in the northwestern Iraqi town of Tal Afar killed at least four people and wounded 17, police said. via Kazinform

“They (the soldiers) were defeated not by the terrorists but by the lack of basic equipment. To send soldiers into a combat zone without basic equipment is unforgivable, inexcusable and a breach of trust between the soldiers and those who govern them.”

Two coroners criticised the Government after hearing that the deaths of three British soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq could have been prevented if they were better equipped. via Daily Express

“This is a military case and should be tried in a military court”

Lawyers for a former Army private charged with raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and murdering her and her family asked a judge Friday to dismiss federal charges, saying he should be prosecuted in a military ... via The Oregonian

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals International is bringing stray dogs and cats adopted by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to the United States. via Washington Examiner

A second South Korean consortium has struck an oil deal with Iraq's Kurdish region, risking a sharp reaction from Baghdad but boosting shares in Ssangyong Engineering & Construction, which will lead a linked ... via Budapest Business Journal

“They are continuing to protect us today.”

Fort Campbell held a remembrance ceremony for soldiers killed in the Iraq war in January, a deadly month when the base lost 10 soldiers in its troops' latest deployment. via Army Times

BAGHDAD -- When twin blasts ravaged crowded pet markets earlier this month, Iraqi authorities offered a chilling account: Mentally disabled women carried the hidden explosives, perhaps as unwitting bombers for ... via The Indianapolis Star

“The war has exacerbated the problems in Iraq that are one or two decades old”

At least 275 children in southern Iraq have been infected with a disfiguring skin disease, an outbreak some health officials are blaming on the war's devastating effect on the public health system. via The Oregonian

The U.S. military is claiming some success on the first anniversary of the troop surge in Iraq. via News10.net

“Islamic state in Iraq will be the cornerstone for the return of Al-Quds”

The purported leader of al Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq called in a new posting on a militant Web site on Thursday for attacks on Israel and proposed that Iraq's territory be a "launching pad" to seize Jerusalem.

In the 30-minute audiotape, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, said to head the Islamic State of Iraq, lashed out at Arab and Palestinian groups - especially the Palestinian Hamas - for failing to liberate the Palestinians.

He also called on Hamas' military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, to break away from the group's political leadership and liberate Jerusalem, or Al-Quds as the city is called in Arabic. Read more

“We didn't know her and we hadn't seen her before”

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BAGHDAD | A Baghdad mental hospital administrator has been arrested on suspicion of supplying mental patients to insurgents for use in suicide bombings, a U.S. military spokesman said Wednesday.

The interim administrator at Rashad psychiatric hospital was arrested Sunday and is being questioned in U.S. custody, said spokesman Rear Adm. Greg Smith.

The arrest was part of the probe into double suicide bombings Feb. 1 in Baghdad, which claimed at least 99 lives and were the worst such attack in the capital in nine months. Read more

“Many said that Iraq's communities couldn't relate to each other. Their grievances, their distrusts were so profound, they couldn't reach fundamental compromises. Well, we've never believed that that was a correct assessment”

Parliament cleared the way Wednesday for provincial elections this year that could give Sunnis a stronger voice and usher in vast changes to Iraq's power structure. via Cumberlink.com

Secretary Condoleezza Rice Op-Ed With Secretary of Defense Robert Gates The Washington Post February 13, 2008 Over the past year, we have seen that Iraqis are committed to affirming their own sovereignty. via State Department

“And we will continue to pursue ways to help the Iraqi people achieve a stable and transparent government.”

Attorney General Michael Mukasey met Wednesday with the head of Iraq's judicial council during a quick trip to Baghdad to review U.S. efforts to help build the nation's legal system.

Mukasey also met with top U.S. officials in Iraq, as well as soldiers and some of the more 200 Justice Department officials currently there working on the so-called 'rule of law' mission.

'Our civilian volunteers are working with the Iraqi people to build a legal system fashioned by cultures and customs very different from our own but founded upon the same bedrock principles: due process and the rule of law,' Mukasey said in a statement that the Justice Department released early Wednesday in Washington. Read more