The cleric may be pushing for a seat at discussions over U.S. military withdrawal. But don't expect a breakthrough on Iraq yet
Iraq and the United States are close to reaching a deal under which U.S. combat troops would leave by December 2010 and the rest would leave by the end of 2011, two Iraqi officials said Thursday.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Saturday that plans are being made to scale back troops in Iraq, but he would not set an "artificial timetable."
Security contractors working in Iraq will no longer receive immunity from prosecution in that nation under a deal being brokered by Iraqi and U.S. officials, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pushed Iran on Sunday to back off its fierce opposition to a U.S.-Iraqi security pact
An Iranian official says the government wants the United States to stop its "savage attacks" in Iraq before its envoys hold more talks with U.S. and Iraqi officials, Iran's Fars News Agency reported.
The U.S. continues to inveigh against Tehran's alleged subversion of Iraq, so why are many in Baghdad slow to believe the American accusations?
An Iraqi delegation that arrived in Tehran on Wednesday confronted Iranian officials with "evidence" that Iran is smuggling weapons and explosive devices into Iraq and training Iraqi militants, charges that the Iranians vehemently denied, an Iraqi politician said Saturday.
Iraqi lawmakers were making a "brief" visit to Iran to confront officials there with "sufficient evidence of Iran's support for militias and outlaws in Iraq," Iraqi officials said Thursday.
Iranian influence on Iraq's ruling parties is a "stark reality," the commander of U.S. troops in Iraq said Thursday, but he said Iranian support for Iraqi Shiite Muslim militias has raised "genuine concern" among leaders in Baghdad.
The cleric may be pushing for a seat at discussions over U.S. military withdrawal. But don't expect a breakthrough on Iraq yet
Iraq and the United States are close to reaching a deal under which U.S. combat troops would leave by December 2010 and the rest would leave by the end of 2011, two Iraqi officials said Thursday.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Saturday that plans are being made to scale back troops in Iraq, but he would not set an "artificial timetable."
Security contractors working in Iraq will no longer receive immunity from prosecution in that nation under a deal being brokered by Iraqi and U.S. officials, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pushed Iran on Sunday to back off its fierce opposition to a U.S.-Iraqi security pact
An Iranian official says the government wants the United States to stop its "savage attacks" in Iraq before its envoys hold more talks with U.S. and Iraqi officials, Iran's Fars News Agency reported.
The U.S. continues to inveigh against Tehran's alleged subversion of Iraq, so why are many in Baghdad slow to believe the American accusations?
An Iraqi delegation that arrived in Tehran on Wednesday confronted Iranian officials with "evidence" that Iran is smuggling weapons and explosive devices into Iraq and training Iraqi militants, charges that the Iranians vehemently denied, an Iraqi politician said Saturday.
Iraqi lawmakers were making a "brief" visit to Iran to confront officials there with "sufficient evidence of Iran's support for militias and outlaws in Iraq," Iraqi officials said Thursday.
Iranian influence on Iraq's ruling parties is a "stark reality," the commander of U.S. troops in Iraq said Thursday, but he said Iranian support for Iraqi Shiite Muslim militias has raised "genuine concern" among leaders in Baghdad.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki blasted the U.S. State Department for renewing its contract with the Blackwater security firm, saying the company has yet to answer for what he called a "massacre" last year.
The U.S. State Department's renewal of Blackwater's contract to provide security in Iraq "is bad news," an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said.
The deal to end the weeklong fighting in Iraq's Shiite regions appeared to be holding Monday, but left lingering questions about Iran's growing influence, the Iraqi government's military resolve and the chances for more intra-Shiite hostility.
Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called on followers to stop shooting and cooperate with Iraqi security forces Sunday, a move Iraq's government praised as a step toward ending six days of fighting that has left hundreds dead.
Iraq's three-man presidency council on Wednesday approved draft legislation for provincial elections, reversing an earlier decision.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and other senior leaders Tuesday on an unannounced visit to Iraq, the White House said.
U.S., Turkish and Iraqi leaders all held talks Monday about Kurdish rebels using northern Iraq as a launchpad for cross-border attacks into Turkey.
Iraq's prime minister wants the American military to hand over "Chemical Ali" and two other convicted officials from Saddam Hussein's regime for execution, an Iraqi official said Tuesday, but the move could widen the divide between Iraq's Sunni and Shiite Muslim communities.
A legal debate and reconciliation politics have delayed the scheduled executions in Iraq of three Saddam Hussein-era officials and the hiatus is causing an uproar among Iraqi officials.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki promised Saturday to smoke out Kurdish separatist rebels using Iraq as a base to launch attacks into neighboring Turkey.
With Turkish officials under pressure to strike at Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, U.S. President George W. Bush has told Turkey's president his administration will keep pressing Baghdad to clamp down on the rebels, the White House said Monday.
The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad disavowed a Senate resolution calling for dividing Iraq into federal regions, a move Iraqi leaders condemned Sunday as a violation of Iraq's sovereignty.
The Iraqi government said it will file criminal charges against employees of security firm Blackwater USA who were involved a gun battle in Baghdad in which civilians were killed, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said Sunday.
Faced with walkouts by members of his government and increasing criticism from U.S. officials, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told U.S. senators Sunday to butt out of his country's domestic politics.
Civilian casualties remain high, sectarian groups can't get along, al Qaeda in Iraq is still pulling off high-profile attacks and "to date, Iraqi leaders remain unable to govern effectively," said the declassified version of the National Intelligence Estimate released Thursday.
With sentiment growing that Iraq's Prime Minister needs to be replaced, the potential successors inspire little confidence
Iraq's prime minister lashed out Wednesday at U.S. criticism, saying no one has the right to impose timetables on his elected government
President Bush drew parallels between the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the potential costs of pulling out of Iraq in a speech Wednesday.
The White House announced Tuesday that an upcoming progress report will result in "the beginning of a new way" in Iraq, but President Bush said military commanders, not politicians, will show the way forward.
A major Sunni political party Monday demanded that the U.S. and Iraqi militaries halt a security operation aimed at rooting out insurgents in and around the Diyala province city of Baquba.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki condemned a U.S. raid Saturday in a Baghdad slum in which American troops sparked a firefight that left 26 Iraqis dead
Commanders are operating under the assumption that at least two of three U.S. soldiers missing in Iraq are alive, military officials told CNN.
Vice President Dick Cheney said Wednesday that he believes there's a "greater sense of urgency" among Iraqis to make progress on all fronts in the war-wracked nation.
A meeting Tuesday between Iraq's Shiite prime minister and the country's top Sunni official appeared to ease tensions over threats that the entire Sunni bloc could pull out of the government.
Iraq's top Sunni official has set a deadline of next week for pulling his entire bloc out of the government -- a potentially devastating blow to reconciliation efforts within Iraq. He also said he turned down an offer by President Bush to visit Washington until he can count more fully on U.S. help.
The Anbar Salvation Council claims it killed al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri in fighting Tuesday.
The United Nations is unable to determine how many Iraqi civilians have been killed so far this year because the Iraqi government won't share the information, a U.N. agency said in a Wednesday report.
Iraqi politicians -- frustrated by violence throughout the country and the glacial pace of parliamentary lawmaking -- say the nearly one-year-old government is failing.
Anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered six cabinet ministers from his political bloc to leave Iraq's government on Monday, making good on a threat issued last week after the prime minister rejected a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S.-led troops.
Anti-U.S. Shiite cleric and militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr will announce Monday the departure of his movement's six ministers from Iraq's government to press demands for the U.S. to leave Iraq, the bloc's spokesman Saleh al-Ageili told CNN.
A suicide attack in Iraq's parliament building on Thursday killed eight people, including two Iraqi lawmakers, and wounded 20, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was in a Jordanian hospital on Monday after experiencing dizziness and low blood pressure a day earlier in Iraq, his son and a physician said.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani fell ill and was flown from northern Iraq to neighboring Jordan on Sunday for treatment of what his son called "fatigue and exhaustion coupled with dehydration."
At least 39 people were killed Saturday when a car bomb exploded as they left a Sunni mosque in Habbaniya, Iraq, an Interior Ministry official said.
Iraq's government spokesman said Tuesday that the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad told his country that an Iranian diplomat believed to have been kidnapped days ago instead had been arrested.
Eleven Shiite pilgrims were ambushed, shot and killed Wednesday as their caravan returned from the Hajj in Saudi Arabia, an Interior Ministry official in Baghdad said.
U.S. officials reportedly tried to delay last week's execution of Saddam Hussein, fearing it would fuel perceptions the death of the former Iraqi dictator was more about Shiite retribution and less about justice.
Iraqi and Iranian authorities slammed the United States on Monday for having arrested several Iranians who were visiting Iraq.
The powerful Shiite-led political bloc in Iraq's Parliament will meet with the country's lead ayatollah and the anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to promote Shiite unity and persuade al-Sadr followers to rejoin the government, a member of the Alliance said.
Attacks by Iraqi insurgents and sectarian militias jumped 22 percent from mid-August to mid-November, according to a Pentagon report released Monday.
On Sunday armed gunmen released six of the 30 men they had kidnapped earlier in the day from the offices of Iraqi aid agency the Red Crescent, a spokesman for the organization said.
Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a top Iraqi Shiite leader with close ties to Iran, will meet with President Bush next week, the White House confirmed Friday.
Iraq's prime minister saw his support erode on two fronts Wednesday as a White House memo questioned his leadership and a powerful political bloc suspended participation in Iraq's government.
Iran's supreme leader on Tuesday said American policies in Iraq are the "main cause" of that country's violence and insecurity, and withdrawal of "foreign forces" is the first step to ending the country's discord, according to an Iranian news agency report.
Insurgents Monday targeted key oil sites in Iraq, firing mortar rounds into an oil distribution center in northern Iraq and bombing a pipeline in a southern suburb of Baghdad, Iraqi officials said.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki Sunday characterized the situation in Iraq as a "political crisis" and said politicians are the only ones who can stop the further security deterioration and bloodshed of innocent people.
Anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's bloc is threatening to withdraw support from Iraq's government if next week's planned meeting in Jordan between President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki takes place.
Backed by U.S.-led coalition advisers, Iraqi security forces battled insurgents early Tuesday in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood, the U.S. military said.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is expected to meet in the next few days with high-ranking officials from Iran and Syria, neighbors that the United States has blamed for many of Iraq's problems.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Saturday referred to the boundary between himself and the United States, telling U.S. President Bush that he answers first to the Iraqi government and people, according to an Iraqi official.
U.S. and Iraqi forces on Wednesday launched a raid in Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's turf in eastern Baghdad.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in the northern Iraqi town of Irbil and met Kurdish leaders Friday.
Police said Wednesday they discovered 17 unidentified bodies in the past 24 hours, putting the total number of corpses found in the Iraqi capital this week at 77.
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has praised the new Iraqi government and said Iran looks forward to the day when U.S. troops leave Iraq, according to an Iranian media report.
Iran's president -- hosting a visit from Iraq's prime minister and expressing support for his country's beleaguered war-torn neighbor -- says the Islamic republic supports a "united" Iraq and will help the nation "establish full security," an Iranian news agency reported.
Twenty people were found dead Wednesday northeast of Baghdad after gunmen kidnapped 24 civilians, an Iraqi official said.
The Iraqi government sent a clear message to its neighbors Monday, warning them to turn over people on a most-wanted list or risk contributing to a spread of terrorism that would engulf the region.
Iraqi police imposed a curfew Friday in Baghdad and in the Diyala province, where bombs from U.S. warplanes Thursday killed the most-wanted man in Iraq, an Interior Ministry official said.
Iraq is inching ever closer to forming a permanent government, after more than five months of arduous negotiations.
Three U.S. soldiers were killed Sunday in northwest Baghdad when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb, the U.S. military said.
Iraq finally has names for its top jobs -- more than four months after its historic general election.
Iraq's Shiite coalition agreed Friday to nominate a new candidate to replace interim Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a move that could jump-start the nation's stalled political process, two members of a top Shiite party said.
It could be viewed as a setback -- all the way to square one -- but it just might be the setback that moves Iraq to actually form a unity government.
Iraqi lawmakers gathering for its second session of parliament on Thursday decided to postpone the session for two days amid a possible breakthrough over the contentious issue of the prime minister's post.
Facing mounting pressure to bow out, Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said Thursday that he would step down if members of his Shiite bloc say they want a new candidate.
Iraq's parliament will convene Thursday, a government spokesman in Baghdad said Wednesday, in an effort to come to some agreement on the make-up of the government.
The impasse over who will lead Iraq's government may soon end under a compromise that would replace the interim prime minister with a member of his own party, Iraq's new ambassador to the United States said Sunday.
On the third anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, Iraqi authorities found the bodies of five men who appeared to be the latest victims of sectarian violence, and four civilians died in insurgent bomb blasts.
Shiite mourners carrying dozens of coffins filled Baghdad's streets Saturday, as families buried victims of the massive suicide bomb attack at a Shiite mosque a day earlier.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday called for an end to the "political vacuum" in Iraq and for the Iraqis to form a new government.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her counterpart, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, flew to Baghdad on Sunday for a visit aimed at jump-starting the process of forming a national unity government.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her counterpart, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, are in Baghdad for a previously unannounced visit aimed at jump-starting the process of forming a national unity government.
Three months after its members were elected, Iraq's parliament met briefly Thursday, but a major stumbling block to the creation of a national unity government remains for the legislative body.
"Everyone wants me to solve their problems,"
Iraq's prime minister said Monday that he has the support of the Iraqi public and gave no indication that he would step aside despite strong opposition from some Iraqi political parties.
As violence across Iraq claimed at least 15 lives Friday, President Jalal Talabani issued an official statement for the new parliament to hold its first session on March 19.
Iraq's new parliament, faced with the difficult task of selecting the nation's leaders, will hold its first session this weekend, President Jalal Talabani said Monday.
A mortar round killed seven people and wounded 15 others at a busy market in a southeastern Baghdad suburb early Saturday, said an emergency police official, one day after a daytime curfew brought relative peace.
The usually bustling Baghdad was eerily quiet most of Friday with shops closed and streets deserted as authorities enforced a daytime vehicular curfew.
Violence shook Baghdad and areas outside the capital Wednesday as strikes thought to be fueled by sectarian animosity persisted and Iraqi leaders prepared to huddle to work toward a national unity government.
Iraqi leaders attempted Thursday to stop sectarian violence that has escalated since a revered Shiite shrine was bombed in Samarra, prompting widespread reprisals against Sunnis.
A group that monitored the Iraqi parliamentary elections said preliminary findings show "there has been a significant increase in voter turnout" among Iraqi expatriates casting ballots in 15 countries across the globe.
The United Iraqi Alliance and Kurdish alliance -- the Shiite-led and Kurdish coalitions that prevailed in the January 30 elections -- are considered front-runners in Thursday's parliamentary elections.
The Iraqi draft constitution has passed, according to final results released Tuesday by Iraqi election officials.
An attorney for a co-defendant of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was kidnapped and killed, one day after the dramatic trial opened in Baghdad.
As an insurgent attack killed 30 Iraqis on Wednesday, a powerful Sunni Arab group and the nation's Kurdish-Shiite coalition reached an agreement that may aid passage of Iraq's first constitution, President Jalal Talabani said.
A deal struck in last-minute talks Tuesday night between a major Sunni Arab party and the Shiite-Kurd coalition could aid approval of the proposed Iraq constitution this weekend, sources involved in the talks told CNN.
Insurgents on Wednesday unleashed a spate of suicide car bombings and other attacks in Baghdad and other towns, killing at least 151 people and wounded more than 300 in one of the war's most violent days.
Iraq's constitutional committee approved a final draft of the Iraqi constitution and put it before the National Assembly on Sunday, despite the rejection of Sunni Arab leaders.
Iraq's three major groups -- Kurds, Shiite Arabs and Sunni Arabs -- continue to debate the proposed constitution, striving to win over critics by Sunday.
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