US hands over Tariq Aziz, other detainees

Iraq's deputy justice minister says U.S. authorities have handed over 55 members of Saddam Hussein's former regime, including the longtime international face of the regime, Tariq Aziz.

Wednesday's announcement comes a day before U.S. authorities are to depart Camp Cropper, the last American-run detention facility in Iraq.

Iraq's deputy justice minister Busho Ibrahim tells The Associated Press the handover has taken place over the last three days.

U.S. authorities confirmed Wednesday that they had handed over some detainees but would not give any identities.

Britain rushed to invade Iraq

A former British diplomat says government did not tried hard enough to find an alternative to the military action to deal with Iraq's former dictator Saddam Hussein.

Carne Ross, who served as first secretary at the UK's mission to UN between 1997 and 2002, told the Iraq war inquiry on Monday that Britain's pre-invasion containment policy ruled that the government considers sanctions and other measures before leaping to a military solution.

He said no "significant intelligence" backed up the claims that Iraq was armed with weapons of mass destruction but officials opposing a military campaign there were "very beleaguered".

Ross resigned from the Diplomatic Service in 2004 to protest the invasion of Iraq citing serious blunders by the British government in the use of the intelligence and its failure to use possible diplomatic options.

At the inquiry session, Ross made it clear that those who supported the use of economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure and controlling of no-fly zones in Iraq in 2001 were "under pressure".

He said though making sanctions work was "politically difficult" it was "doable" but Washington and London offered "very little senior support" to the UN mission in that regard.

Ross added Saddam regime's illegal oil exports through Turkey and Syria could be hindered to pressure Iraq by cutting its vital income but that was an "available option to us, as a government, that we never took".

"It is astonishing to me that neither the US nor UK did anything about Saddam's illegal bank accounts which we knew to exist in Jordan" he said, "It was far less effort than any subsequent military effort was made to topple Saddam".

Also on the threats posed by Saddam, Ross said "we continued to believe Iraq was certainly pursuing WMD [weapons of mass destruction] programmes […] but we had no significant intelligence".

He said the intelligence documents prepared by the government to justify its attack on Iraq "converted" the "uncertain and patchy" looks of the reports into a "positive" base for military action.

US wants greater effort from Iraq to form government

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday urged Iraqis on all sides to make greater efforts to overcome differences and end a four-month stalemate in forming a government.

"More is needed from everyone involved," Clinton said after talks with her Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari, saying she shared "a sense of urgency."

"We urge the leaders of Iraq to reach a agreement and to put their personal interest behind the national interest," she said.

"I reiterated the US has no preference about the outcome... but we are concerned about the delay," the top US diplomat said.

For his part, Zebari said the delay was being taken seriously and that despite "some delays, eventually a government will emerge."

"We are doing our best to do that, in order to avoid any constitutional, governmental vacuum."

Iraqi politicians on Monday extended an inaugural parliamentary session by two weeks to give rival blocs more time to form a government, more than four months after the elections.

The parliament, the second democratically elected chamber since the 2003 fall of dictator Saddam Hussein, met briefly for the first time on June 14 after the March 7 general election.

Under the conflict-wracked country's new constitution, there was a one-month deadline from that date for members to reconvene.

But deadlock over who will become Iraq's new prime minister has stalled efforts to form a government.

"Anything the US can do, we stand ready to do in order to encourage the government formation as soon as possible," Clinton said.

Eager to see a peaceful resolution before it begins withdrawing troops in September, Washington has sought to break the political deadlock.

In early July, US Vice President Joe Biden traveled to Iraq to urge politicians to put aside personal ambitions and form a government representative of all Iraqis.

Oil smuggling to Iran embarrassment for Iraq

The smuggling of tens of thousands of gallons a day of crude oil and refined fuels from northern Iraq to Iran, in violation of new U.S. sanctions, is stoking tensions between Iraq's central government and its Kurdish provincial counterparts.

The reports about the oil smuggling surfaced just over a week after the U.S. imposed new sanctions barring the export of refined fuels to Iran. They also arise at a time when Kurdish help may be needed to form the next government as politicians in Baghdad have been deadlocked since the March 7 election.

Iraqi officials quickly vowed to do something about the practice. The smuggling is an embarrassment for Baghdad and the Kurds — both U.S. allies — not only because of the sanctions but also because of Iraqis' perception that politicians are profiting on the trade while the public suffers from fuel shortages.

Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said Tuesday the cabinet had decided to summon representatives of the Kurdish regional government to discuss the smuggling issue and "to put an end to it, as it harms Iraq's national and economic interests."

"This matter is unacceptable and strange," al-Shahristani told reporters after the cabinet meeting. It is "illogical to export refined products to neighboring countries while Iraq imports refined products such as gasoline."

Days earlier, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said an urgent meeting would be held with Kurdish officials.

The Kurds, however, appeared resistant. One Kurdish government official told The Associated Press he doubted any meeting would take place, noting "the government's mandate is over." He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue.

Kurdish officials acknowledged that some refined fuel from their region was being exported legally, but denied that any crude was being smuggled into Iran.

Kurdish Natural Resources Minister Ashti Hawrami insisted the source of the smuggling problem was not the Kurds. According to the Kurdish news agency, Hawrami said oil from two major refineries in central Iraq is being shipped to Iran and "the Iraqi government's raising of this issue now has a political objective of covering up the unofficial sale of crude oil from southern Iraq."

In a statement this week, the Kurdish regional government blamed Baghdad's policy of selling heavily discounted fuel to private distributors for the Iraqi public, which it said creates "incentives" for the buyers to smuggle it abroad. It acknowledged some of that smuggling may go through Kurdistan and said it is "committed to working with the federal government to eliminate permanently all such profiteering of fuel oil."

An Associated Press reporter who visited the area several weeks ago saw hundreds of fuel tankers lined up at an official crossing on a narrow mountain road at Haj Omran, a Kurdish resort town on the border with Iran. One driver, Nouri Ahmed, said he was to transport his shipment down to the Iranian port of Bandar Imam, where it is unloaded and moved to a tanker in the Gulf.

"I don't know where it goes" from there, Ahmed said.

The oil smuggling is far from new. For several years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, it was one of the preferred ways for insurgents to fund their operations. As security improved, private individuals and political groups picked up on the lucrative practice. Analysts say that smuggling of oil has been going on in the Kurdish north since the early 1990s.

But the issue is in the limelight now after President Barack Obama this month signed the new sanctions, which punish entities involved in exporting refined fuel products to Iran. Iran is a major exporter of crude oil, but it sorely lacks refineries, making it heavily reliant on imports of gasoline and other refined fuels. The U.S. move aims to put extra pressure on Iran over its nuclear program after four rounds of U.N. financial sanctions.

"If Iran had not been placed under international sanctions, the smuggling would have continued without a single comment," Bassem al-Sheik, the editor-in-chief of Ad-Dustour newspaper wrote Monday. He said the Kurdistan government's silence on smuggling for so long was likely because the Kurdish political groups were benefiting from the proceeds.

U.S. officials in Iraq said smuggling had long been an issue, even before the new sanctions were approved. But as major oil companies grow increasingly reluctant to sell refined products to Iran, new players had been stepping up.

"We're concerned about this, and we're reviewing these developments," said Nolan Barkhouse, a U.S. embassy spokesman in Baghdad.

Oil has long been a source of tensions between the central government in Baghdad and the government in the autonomous Kurdish region in the north. The two sides have been at odds over just how much control the Kurds — who sit on more than a third of Iraq's 115 billion barrels in proven crude reserves — should have over the oil in their territory.

Several years ago, Baghdad deemed illegal the unilateral oil deals signed by the Kurds with foreign companies following Saddam Hussein's ouster.

While the Baghdad government struck a deal in June 2009 with the Kurds to allow exports to resume through the pipeline that runs from Kirkuk to Ceyhan, Turkey, the agreement was short-lived, with exports halted three months later over a dispute over payments to foreign companies operating there.

Exports through the line have yet to resume with any consistency, raising the question of what becomes of production from the Taq Taq and Tawke fields that feed it. Taq Taq is operated by China's state-owned Sinopec Group and Turkey's Genel Enerji, and Tawke by the independent Norwegian oil company DNO.

Tawke's production in May — the latest available — stood at about 4,800 barrels per day, far shy of the field's 50,000 barrel per day capacity. Of that production, 80 barrels per day go to power the company's operations at Tawke, according to company figures. The rest is split between DNO's local refinery and the small refineries in the region, said DNO spokesman Tom Bratlie.

While DNO doesn't keep track of what happens to the oil once it's sold, "all deliveries are subject to approval by the local government," Bratlie said. He said oil refined by DNO is distributed by the local government.

The smuggling seems less a matter of helping Iran than of turning a profit.

"It's physically impossible for the oil being smuggled to be more than a drop in the bucket for Iranian needs," Samuel Ciszuk, Mideast energy analyst with IHS Global Insight said.

El-Tablawy is based in Baghdad and Barzanji in Sulaimaniyah; AP writer Sinan Salaheddin contributed to this report from Baghdad and Ian MacDougall from Oslo, Norway.

At least 11 dead in Iraq attacks

At least 11 people were killed in bomb and gun attacks in Iraq on Tuesday, including three by a device which blew up in a mock coffin during a demonstration, security officials said.

Dozens of people took part in the protest in Khales, 65 kilometres (40 miles) north of Baghdad, to demand stiff penalties for the perpetrators of anti-Shiite attacks in the city, the local security operations command said.

The demonstrators were carrying a mock coffin when a booby-trapped device exploded inside the box, killing three people and wounding seven, an official at the centre told AFP.

Sectarian tensions remain high in Khales, a city which in 2006-2007 was a battleground between Sunni insurgents of Al-Qaeda and Shiite militias.

At the end of May, a car bombing in a Khales marketplace killed 30 people, two months after another 42 people perished in a double bomb attack near a coffeeshop and a restaurant.

In Yusifiyah, 25 kilometres (15 miles) south of Baghdad, gunmen on Tuesday killed a leader of the Sahwa militia, which has sided with US forces against Al-Qaeda, and four family members in their home, an interior ministry official said.

In the capital itself, two bombs exploded near a petrol station in the central district of Muhandicin, killing two and wounding five others, the capital's police said.

And a man was killed in the western city of Fallujah when a "sticky bomb" attached to his car blew up, a local police official said.

Although overall levels of violence in Iraq have fallen markedly since their peak in 2006 and 2007, deadly attacks against civilians and security forces take place on a daily basis.

Iraq has only a caretaker government more than four months after a general election in which no clear winner emerged.

Non-military options over Iraq neglected says diplomat

Dealing with Saddam Hussein through sanctions and other methods was a "very available" alternative to military action, a former UK diplomat has said.

Carne Ross, who resigned over the war, told the Iraq inquiry that the UK did not work hard enough to make its pre-2003 policy of containment work.

Officials trying to argue for this approach felt "very beleaguered".

There was no "significant intelligence" to back up beliefs Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, he added.

The Iraq inquiry is continuing to examine the background to the UK's participation in the 2003 invasion, the build-up to the war and its aftermath.

Mr Ross was first secretary at the UK's mission to the UN between 1997 and 2002.

In this role, he played an important role in liaising with UN weapons inspectors in Iraq and Security Council members as they sought to get Saddam Hussein to comply with his disarmament obligations.

Mr Ross resigned from the Diplomatic Service in 2004 in protest over Iraq policy and told the Butler inquiry into the use of intelligence by the British government in 2004 that he believed serious policy mistakes had been made.

He told the Chilcot inquiry on Monday that the policy of trying to contain Saddam Hussein by a combination of economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure and policing of no-fly zones in Iraq, was "under pressure" in 2001.

Enforcement of sanctions was "politically difficult", because of concerns they were not adequately targeted and were being widely breached by the regime, but it was "doable", he said.

However, UN officials received "very little senior support" from London and Washington in their efforts to make the sanctions regime more effective.

During the period, Saddam Hussein's regime was being "sustained" by revenues from illegal oil exports through Turkey and Syria but the international community did little to clamp down on this.

"That was an available option to us, as a government, that we never took," he said.'Not justified'

Other methods of undermining the regime and preventing the momentum towards a military confrontation were neglected, he suggested.

"It is astonishing to me that neither the US nor UK did anything about Saddam's illegal bank accounts which we knew to exist in Jordan.

"That was not brain surgery to attack all those bank accounts. It was far less effort than any subsequent military effort was made to topple Saddam."

Asked about the threat posed by Iraq, Mr Ross said there was no evidence that it was "substantially rearming" in the years before the invasion.

"We continued to believe Iraq was certainly pursuing WMD programmes and there was a widespread belief that Iraq probably possessed some WMD of some kind.

"But we had no significant intelligence, in the time I worked at the UK mission, of significant holdings of WMD."

Criticising the September 2002 dossier on Iraq's weapons capability, he said the "uncertain and patchy" picture suggested by intelligence reports had been "converted" into the appearance of "positive" knowledge of a threat.

"Whick I think is a process that is not justified," he said.

He also criticised what he said was a document on Iraq's weapons capability circulated to Labour MPs in March 2002 - which suggested Saddam could develop a "crude" nuclear device within five years if arms programmes went unchecked.

This was contrary to the government's position on the issue, he said, while the assertion was not corrected despite efforts by a senior foreign official to draw attention to it.

Amid threat, U.S. heightens security at its Iraq bases

The U.S. military has beefed up security at some of its bases after a threat that an Iranian-backed militant group was planning to attack, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq said Tuesday.


Men from Kataib Hezbollah, a Shiite group that U.S. officials say is trained and funded by Iran'sRevolutionary Guard Corps, crossed into Iran for training and returned to conduct attacks just as U.S. troop levels plummet over the summer, Gen. Ray Odierno said. By September, only 50,000 U.S. troops will remain in Iraq.

"In the last couple weeks there's been an increased threat," Odierno said in a briefing to reporters. "We've increased our security on some of our bases. We've also increased activity with the Iraqi Security Forces. This is another attempt by Iran and others to influence the U.S. role here inside Iraq."

So far the threat has not manifested, he said.

Odierno said the Iranian-backed militant groups seem focused primarily on attacking U.S. troops, and don't pose a long-term threat to the Iraqi government.

The Kataib Hezbollah group is plotting to use powerful rocket-propelled bombs called Improvised Rocket-Assisted Munitions, or IRAMs, Odierno said. The short-range projectiles are propane tanks packed with explosives and launched with 107 mm rockets, often off the back of pickup trucks.

In the past seven years there have been a total of 16 attacks on U.S. bases with IRAMS, including five in the past year, the U.S. officials said. With the U.S. military moving from smaller bases to larger, more densely populated bases as part of the ongoing drawdown, the IRAMs could be particularly lethal.

"There is a very consistent threat from Iranian surrogates operating in Iraq," Odierno said. "Whether it's connected directly to the Iranian government? We can argue about that. But it's clearly connected to" the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.






Iran has been an influential and sometimes nefarious neighbor to Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003. Iraqi officials often fly to neighboring Tehran for consultation, and the Islamic republic is a top trade partner for Iraq.

U.S. officials say Iran still funnels weaponry to Shiite militia groups in Iraq, although it does so much less frequently than it did in years past. Overall, Iran is pursuing more of a "soft power" approach in Iraq, Odierno said, trying to exert influence through economic investment and political pressure so as not to alienate the Iraqi people.

"The Iranian-supported surrogates have always been a larger threat to U.S. forces" than to Iraqi security forces," Odierno said. "They target specifically U.S. forces. In my mind they are not a threat to the government of Iraq or the formation of the government of Iraq."

Odierno reaffirmed that the U.S. troop withdrawal remains on track even though Iraq has yet to form a new government, more than four months after the national election. There are currently about 74,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. At the height of the U.S. military surge there were more than 165,000.

Iraq doesn't need more troops now, Odierno said; it needs political and economic support.

"For us it's about eliminating the environment that allows extremism to exist. We haven't eliminated that environment. That environment will get eliminated through economic and political progress," Odierno said. "We're not leaving tomorrow. We're going to have 50,000 American soldiers on the ground here. . . . We're not abandoning Iraq. We're changing our commitment from military-dominated to one that is civilian-led."

Iraq parliament session delayed over govt impasse

Iraq on Monday delayed a parliament session scheduled for this week as the political impasse over who will lead the country drags into its fifth month.

The deadlock comes as U.S. forces are pulling out of the country even as politicians seem unable to compromise over the formation of their future government following inconclusive national elections.

"There are still differences in points of views, so it is impossible to enter the parliament hall," said acting parliament speaker Fouad Massoum, warning that the next session could be delayed for days, if not weeks.

Elections on March 7 did not give any party enough seats to form a majority in the 325-member parliament. For the past several months, the major coalitions have been engaged in intense negotiations to win enough allies to form a government.

The alliance in early May of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's coalition and another Shiite bloc backed by Iran seemed to indicate the process was picking up speed with their super-coalition only four seats shy of a governing majority.

But even that alliance is showing cracks as many of the al-Maliki's putative allies are virulently opposed to the prime minister keeping his job.

Massoum said the fact that the parliament was not meeting this week is a violation of the constitution, but he said that nothing can be done. Massoum did not clarify what he meant by the violation but one article of the constitution indicates that the new president should elected within 30 days of the new parliament first meeting.

Meanwhile, Iraq has issued arrest warrants for 39 members of an Iranian opposition group who have lived in a camp northeast of Baghdad since Saddam Hussein's reign.

The development comes just days after American soldiers shut down their base near Camp Ashraf as part of the U.S. troop drawdown.

The presence of the Iranian group, which fought alongside Saddam during his 1980s war with Iran, has long irritated Iraq's Shiite-led government.

A senior Iraqi judiciary official said on Monday that the wanted members of the group — known as The People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran — are suspected of committing crimes while helping Saddam crush the 1991 Shiite revolt.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Iraqi court seeks arrest of Iranian exiles

An Iraqi court ordered the arrest of 39 members of an exiled Iranian opposition group, accusing them of crimes against humanity in helping Saddam Hussein to crush a revolt almost two decades ago, a judge said Sunday.

The 39 are members of the People's Mujahideen Organization of Iran (PMOI), a guerrilla movement opposed to the Iranian government. It sided with the toppled Iraqi dictator, a Sunni Muslim, during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s but has denied helping Saddam to crack down on long-oppressed majority Shi'ites and ethnic Kurds.

Iran, Iraq and the United States consider the PMOI a terrorist organization and the now Shi'ite-led Iraqi government has been trying to get it to vacate a base north of Baghdad where around 3,500 of its members have lived for 20 years.

"An arrest warrant has been issued against 39 leaders and members of the organization including the PMOI's head Massoud Rajavi, due to evidence that confirms they committed crimes against humanity," said Judge Mohammed Abdul-Sahib, a spokesman of the Iraqi High Tribunal.

Rajavi's wife Maryam, leader of the French-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the PMOI's political wing, was also included in the warrant, Abdul Sahib added.

"The 39 Iranian suspects were involved with the former Iraqi security forces in suppressing the 1991 (Shi'ite) uprising against the former Iraqi regime and the killing of Iraqi citizens," he said.

The PMOI began as an Islamist leftist group opposed to Iran's late Shah, but fell out with Shi'ite clerics who took power after the 1979 revolution. Mujahideen guerrillas carried out attacks against Iranian targets. Iran executed a large number of PMOI prisoners at the end of the Iran-Iraq war.

Last year, Iraq said it wanted the Iranian opposition exiles based at Camp Ashraf north of Baghdad to leave the country. Iraqi forces took over responsibility for the camp on January 1, 2009 from U.S. troops, who had been guarding it.

Violence erupted there last year when Iraqi security forces tried to enter the camp. At least seven exiles were killed.

Mahdi Uqbaai, a spokesman of the PMOI, said the court was pressured by the government to order the arrests.

"This is a politically motivated decision and it's the last gift presented from the government of (Prime Minister) Nuri al-Maliki to the Iranian government," said Uqbaai.

The Iraqi High Tribunal was set up after the 2003 invasion to prosecute crimes against humanity and genocide committed during Saddam's rule. Any case against the PMOI would be its first against foreigners for Saddam-era crimes.

Police Targeted in Iraq Attacks

Gunmen in Iraq attacked a local police chief's convoy Saturday, wounding him and two others.

The police chief was traveling near Mosul when militants fired on the motorcade.

The attack sparked a clash between police and militants that left one officer dead and at least one other person wounded.

Another policeman was killed and at least two others wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near their patrol outside Fallujah.

US troops killed in Iraq and Kuwait

Army Capt. Michael P. Cassidy


The last time Michael Cassidy was home on leave — two weeks in the middle of his deployment to Iraq — he took the daughters who his wife said were the "apples of his eyes" to the Carowinds theme park in South Carolina.

"Of course, I had a lot of errands for him to run and things to fix around the house," said Cassidy's wife, Johanna. "We just enjoyed being together."

It was extra special for his daughters, 10-year-old Catherine and 9-year-old Amber.

"He loved being a dad. He did everything for these children," Johanna Cassidy said.

The Army Captain died June 17 in Mosul, Iraq, of injuries not related to combat. He was assigned to Fort Stewart.

He started life as a computer specialist and later went to Sherman College in South Carolina to become a chiropractor. But then he joined the National Guard as a medic, and he decided to make it a career after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Others who served with Cassidy remembered him in an online memorial as a consummate soldier.

"He was such a shining light, someone who knew where he wanted to go and never waivered," said Amber Gloria, who had served with Cassidy in 2005.

___

Army Spc. Jacob P. Dohrenwend

While serving as an Army specialist in Iraq, Jake Dohrenwend sometimes used his money to buy items for Iraqi children.

"He always tried to lift the spirits of those around him, even in the worst of circumstances," said his mother, Shannon Abernathy.

Dohrenwend, a Milford, Ohio, native, enlisted in 2008, the same year he graduated from Milford High School. He kept in touch with one of his teachers, Allison Willson, and sent her a letter from Iraq in October after receiving a package from her.

"I'm just doing my part and serving the country I love," he wrote. "I'm thankful for the praise and the care packages, but it's really unnecessary because I would do this job even if no one knew or cared."

Dohrenwend, 20, died June 21 in Balad, Iraq, from injuries unrelated to combat. His death is under investigation. He was assigned to Fort Riley.

He also leaves behind his father, Jim Dohrenwend.

Dohrenwend left a message for friends and family to be read in the event of his death.

"I do not regret dying for a second," he wrote. "I only regret we did not have more time. This isn't really a good-bye, but a temporary distance between us."

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Army Pfc. Bryant J. Haynes

Bryant "B.J." Haynes didn't write much on his Myspace profile. He let the pictures do the talking.

First on the list is his pit bull terrier, Flesh. Then come the photos of an athletic football player. In one, he's nearly upside down as he takes a hard tackle "for the team," as his caption puts it.

He's among a sea of red jerseys walking out of a giant animal's mouth onto the football field, "ready for whatever."

"He was a very selfless player who loved his teammates and his school," said John Carr, who coached Haynes at Ouachita Parish High School. Haynes had played for Carr as a wide receiver.

Haynes, 21, of Epps, La., was killed in a vehicle rollover June 26 in Al Diwaniyah, Iraq. He was based with the Army National Guard in Alexandria, La.

Haynes left his school and football team before graduating because he wanted to get his GED and serve in the military.

"He was a loving young man," said his stepfather, Tony Collins. "He was caring and respectable."

Haynes is survived by his mother, Linda Toney Collins; his father, Fredrick Nichols; fiancee, Lakeidra Taylor; and nine brothers and four sisters.

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Army Sgt. Israel O'Bryan

Israel "Izzy" O'Bryan found love in the military.

Not necessarily with his career, but with the woman he wound up marrying — Brenna — who had been a soldier in the same brigade as O'Bryan. They had a son together, 1-year-old Turner.

His dedication to his family is evident on his Facebook page: "My life revolves around benefiting my family in any way that I can even if I have to do something that I hate."

O'Bryan, 24, of Newbern, Tenn., was killed by a suicide bomber June 11 in Jalula, Iraq. He was assigned to Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

An obituary published online said O'Bryan graduated from Dyer County High School in Tennessee and attended the University of Tennessee-Martin for a time. He enlisted in the Army in 2006.

The obituary says he was active in boxing, soccer and baseball and also "enjoyed a good shopping day!"

While his Facebook page indicates how seriously he took his duty to his wife and daughter, it also suggests a sense of humor. One of the quotes he posted reads, "Nobody worries about rearranging the seats on the Titanic."

Among others surviving O'Bryan are his mother, father, stepmother and stepfather.

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Army Spc. Christopher W. Opat

Christopher Opat wasn't afraid to break a sweat, even as a youngster.

"He was always a really, really hard worker," said his brother, Jason Opat. "He would pick rock and bale hay when he was a kid."

He was a gentle person with an adventurous spirit and enjoyed pulling a good prank on his brothers every now and then, relatives said.

The military said only that the 29-year-old Iowan died June 15 in Baquah, Iraq, of injuries from a non-combat incident that was under investigation.

His hometown was listed as Spencer, in northwestern Iowa, but his family said he grew up on a farm near Lime Springs, in the northeastern part of the state. He was assigned to Joint Base Lewis-McChord, served three years in Germany and had been deployed twice.

He had joined the Army to serve his country and to get money for school, Jason Opat said.

Christopher Opat graduated in 1999 from Crestwood High School in the northern Iowa town of Cresco and went on to earn an associate's degree in construction at Iowa Lakes Community College.

Survivors include his parents, Leslie Opat Sr. and Mary Katherine Opat, two other brothers and two sisters.

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Army Sgt. Steve M. Theobald

Steve Theobald was remembered as a great leader that one soldier called the kind of officer he wanted to have with him on a deployment.

"He knew how to instill confidence in any soldier and I would have gone anywhere with him," Army Spc. David B. Emigh, who first met Theobald during training in Indiana, wrote in an online message board. "I hated that I was sent to Afghanistan and he stayed in Kuwait. 'Theo' will be missed by us all."

Theobald, 53, of Goose Creek, S.C., was killed June 4 near Kuwait City, Kuwait, in a vehicle roll-over. He was based in Livingston, Ala. The military is investigating what caused the crash.

Theobald was a highly decorated soldier who graduated from several military schools, according to the Summerville (S.C.) Journal Scene.

He first enlisted in the military in 1975 and served for three years. He then joined the Army Reserve in 1984 and had served ever since. He was on his second tour overseas, having served from 2003-2004 in Iraq.

He was born in Pensacola but lived in South Carolina with his wife and three children.

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Army Spc. William C. Yauch

William Yauch was an outgoing guy who loved life and his country, relatives said.

"He very much loved the U.S. Army and was doing what he believed in and wanted to be doing," said his stepmother, Debbie Yauch.

The 23-year-old from Batesville, Ark., died June 11 in Jalula, Iraq, of wounds from a vehicle-borne explosive device. He was assigned to Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

Debbie Yauch said her stepson was scheduled to come home in less than two months.

"Chris," as he was known, is being remembered for how he enjoyed a good game of paint ball, his passion for riding his motorcycle and his love of tinkering with his car.

"He was a friendly young man, pleasant to be around, just an all-around good guy," said principal David Campbell of Batesville High School, where Yauch graduated in 2005.

He enlisted in the Army in 2007 and married his wife, Mallory Rhodes, in February of the following year.

Other survivors include his mother and stepfather, Lucretia and Dennis Robertson; his father, Kurt Yauch; and four stepsisters, Jenny, Rachel, Barbara and Brenda.

Iraq says to discuss oil smuggling to Iran with Kurd authorities

The Iraqi government has called for urgent talks with the Kurdistan Regional Government to discuss the growing trade in crude oil and oil products from the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in defiance of US sanctions, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Sunday.

Dabbagh spoke on Dubai-based al-Arabiya television in response to a report carried by the Saudi-owned channel about the rise in smuggling of fuel by tanker truck across the border between Iraq and Iran.

"We will be contacting the Kurdish authorities to work together to put a stop to this phenomenon," Dabbagh said, adding that footage shown by the Dubai-based network of oil tanker trucks waiting to cross into Iran "was clear evidence" that smuggling was taking place. He said the Iraqi government would call for immediate contact with the KRG to discuss the issue.

It was not immediately known what volumes of crude oil produced in Kurdish-controlled areas and refined product produced in illegal topping plants in Iraqi Kurdistan were making their way into Iran. However, Al-Arabiya showed footage of long lines of tanker trucks waiting to cross into Iran from the border post of Haj Umran, one of three border crossings it said were used in the smuggling operation.

Some of the crude oil was being taken to Iran's Abadan refinery, which lies close to the border with Iran, Al-Arabiya said.

Dabbagh said the government was trying to obtain details about the smuggling, which he said has been a phenomenon in the past because refined product prices in neighboring countries were higher than Iraqi prices, which are heavily subsidized.

Iraqi Kurdistan currently has only two oil producing fields, Tawke and Taq Taq, which are believed to have a combined capacity of 60,000 b/d. Exports from the two fields began on June 1 last year but were halted three months later in a dispute between the KRG and the Baghdad government over payment to the foreign contractors.

Norwegian independent DNO is operator of the Tawke field, while a Turkish-Chinese consortium is developing the Taq Taq field. Both fields are producing below capacity with no sign of a resumption of exports despite announcements that the Iraqi government had agreed to repay the foreign operators' costs.

The New York Times reported July 8 that hundreds of millions of dollars in crude oil and refined products were being smuggled over the Kurdish mountains into Iran every year without Iraqi government approval.

It said the stream of tankers into Iran continued without interruption during an Iranian military campaign last month against Iranian Kurdish separatists operating at the border.

Hundreds of tankers, each with a capacity of at least 226 barrels of crude oil and refined products, enter Iran every day from Penjwin and two other border posts in Iraqi Kurdistan, the newspaper quoted Kurdish officials as saying. The Times quoted some tanker truck drivers as saying that while much of the refined product is used in Iran, which sorely lacks refinery capacity, the crude oil is trucked all the way down to the Persian Gulf ports of Bandar Bushehr, Bandar Imam Khomeini and Bandar Abbas, where it is emptied into reservoirs or loaded onto ships.

It quoted Kurdish energy minister Ashti Hawrami as saying that the trade is supported by an estimated 70 mini-refineries or topping plants dotted around the Kurdistan region, many of which are unlicensed.

The provision of refined products to Iran is a breach of recently passed US sanctions, which prohibit any company or party from supplying refined oil products to Iran as part of an effort to force Tehran to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

The KRG's official spokesman, in a statement posted on the KRG's website on Sunday, referred to inaccuracies in the New York Times article with regard to the refining of crude oil in Kurdistan. He did, however, concede that some oil and refined products were finding their way across the border.

"The [Kurdish] region's refineries provide essential fuels to Iraqi domestic and international markets," he said. "The KRG is proud of its growing oil and gas sector and the KRG's free trade policies."

The KRG has licensed three refineries in regions under its control, all of which were issued in accordance with the Iraqi constitution and the Kurdistan region's oil and gas law of 2007, he added.

"Surplus from some refined products from Kurdistan's refineries is available for export. The KRG conducts open and competitive tendering for the export sale of petroleum products," he said.

The major sources of refined products are the large refineries in other parts of Iraq, including Baiji, near Baghdad, and Daura, in the Salahiddeen governorate. Some of that product may well be exported through the Kurdistan Region.

"In other parts of Iraq, fuel oil is sold to the local private sector by Federal agencies at a significant discount to the international price. This discount is intended to stimulate the local economy. Unfortunately, this creates incentives for the buyers to engage in cross-border trade," the spokesman said.

"The KRG is aware of the fact that profiteers in fuel oil refined outside Kurdistan have exploited Kurdistan's international borders," he said, adding the KRG, with the active support of Kurdish president Masoud Barzani, was "instituting a series of measures to ensure full compliance with the Iraqi Constitution and international law, and in this regard the KRG is committed to working with the Federal Government to eliminate permanently all such profiteering in fuel oil, not only in the KRG but also along the entirety of Iraq's international borders."

Although Iran and Iraq are oil-producing members of OPEC, the oil and gas industries in both countries face huge challenges as a result of wars and sanctions. Iran turned a blind eye to illicit Iraqi oil exports while Iraq was under UN sanctions for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, when sanctions-busting tankers would smuggle crude oil through the Persian Gulf.

Iran too faces constraints in developing its oil and gas resources and the expansion and upgrade of its refineries because of a lack of sufficient foreign investment, due largely to UN and US sanctions that have squeezed its financial sector and prevented large inflows of foreign funds into Iran.

Iran, like Iraq, is a net importer of oil products to meet domestic consumption, which is high because of subsidies that apply to most refined products.

Turkey Bombs Kurdish Targets in Iraq

Iraqi officials say Turkish warplanes have bombed targets in the Kurdish autonomous region of northern Iraq, wounding one civilian.

The officials say Turkey bombed the village of Sidakan near the Iranian border Saturday.

There was no immediate confirmation of the strike from the Turkish military.

Clashes between Turks and Kurds have increased since the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, called off a yearlong cease-fire in June. The group cited repeated Turkish military attacks for ending the truce.

The PKK is fighting for Kurdish autonomy in southeastern Turkey, and has bases in northern Iraq.

'Tough talking' general picked to oversee Iraq, Afghan wars

A controversial and leading U.S. general is in line to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis -- if he wins presidential and Senate approval -- will move from being the outgoing commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command to leading the U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East and Southwest Asia, including Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. The command also monitors Iran.

He would take over the post left open by the departure of Gen. David Petraeus, who was asked to take over command of the war in Afghanistan.

Mattis was an effective leader in the Marine Corps, in the eyes of the Pentagon, while commanding troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Known for his straight talk and hard-core leadership of Marines in the 2004 battle of Falluja, Iraq, Mattis is considered a dark-horse pick by many in the halls of the Pentagon.

His blunt talk has gotten him in trouble: In 2005 he said, "It's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them," referring to Afghan fighters.

Asked if the general would be an effective leader for the Central Command region with the shadow of the comments still lingering, Gates said Thursday, "Appropriate action was taken at the time. I think that the subsequent five years have demonstrated that the lesson was learned."

"Obviously, in the wake of the Rolling Stone interview, we discussed this kind of thing. And I have every confidence that General Mattis will respond to questions and speak publicly about the matters for which he is responsible in an entirely appropriate way," Gates said.

The Rolling Stone interview led to the resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, then the commander in Afghanistan, because of negative comments about Obama administration officials made by him and his aides.

Mattis' comment in 2005 was made when the then-three-star general was in a panel discussion before an audience.

"Actually, it's quite fun to fight them, you know. It's a hell of a hoot," he said, prompting laughter from some military members in the audience. "It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up there with you. I like brawling," he said.

"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil," he said. "You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."

The commandant of the Marine Corps at the time, Gen. Michael Hagee, counseled Mattis about the remarks but defended him publicly, calling him "one of this country's bravest and most experienced military leaders."

"While I understand that some people may take issue with the comments made by him, I also know he intended to reflect the unfortunate and harsh realities of war," he said in a written statement. "Lt. Gen. Mattis often speaks with a great deal of candor."

Mattis also was the commanding general overseeing the case of the now-infamous slayings of civilians by Marines in Haditha, Iraq.

Some 24 civilians were killed on November 19, 2005, in what a human rights group and military prosecutors said was a house-to-house rampage by Marines after a roadside bomb killed one of their comrades.

Eight Marines were charged, and all but one were cleared, some of them by Mattis.

Mattis also was the overseeing authority in the murder case involving eight Marines found guilty of taking part in a plot to drag an Iraqi man from his home, kill him and then make it look like the man was an insurgent. That incident occurred near the western Iraqi town of Hamdania in April 2006.

Mattis later cut the sentences of at least two of the Marines involved in the plot.

Mattis had been preparing to retire after finishing his latest command, Gates said.

"General Mattis is one of our military's outstanding combat leaders and strategic thinkers, bringing an essential mix of experience, judgment and perspective to this important post," Gates said.

"General Mattis has proven to be one of the military's most innovative and iconoclastic thinkers. His insights into the nature of warfare in the 21st century have influenced my own views about how the armed forces must be shaped and postured for the future."

Australian troops under intense pressure of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq

Australian troops have revealed the intense pressure of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, Australia's media reported on Saturday.

The troops have criticized the Defense organization and their allied counterparts as the troops detailed the hidden trauma of life on the front line.

According to The Australian, in descriptions of overworked pilots addicted to Stilnox and other prescription drugs, an underground trade in illicit substances and sex, complaints about a lack of support, poor leadership and the constant fear of death, troops have provided a raw and disturbing account of Australia's involvement in the Middle East.

The Weekend Australian has obtained an extraordinary selection of transcripts from 120 serving and former troops from the two Iraq offensives, dating back to the early 1990s, and the ongoing Afghanistan war in which they reveal the threats faced on deployment, not only from the enemy, but also from within.

"Their frank and often disheartening comments, made in a supposedly confidential environment for researchers preparing Australia's largest-ever Defense health study, were so controversial that Defense has removed the transcripts from a research website and threatened reprisals over the apparent breach of information security," The Australian wrote.

Defense on Friday night vowed to investigate many of the allegations raised by the focus groups, but insisted some of the members' concerns were dated and had already been addressed. The study itself was being conducted with a view to improving overall support and health-care.

"Some of the comments raised serious issues of concern, and Defense will look into those and take appropriate action," the department said in a statement.

The focus groups confirmed revelations in The Weekend Australian that specialist members of the defense force, such as pilots, were struggling to maintain the operational tempo.

Several members of the focus groups, mainly medics and air force personnel, highlighted the challenge of repeat deployments and, for some, working constant night cycles.

Aircrew expressed concerns about their use of prescription drugs and one Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) medic said crewmen had become dependent or even addicted.

BP spill won't affect Iraq projects: oil minister

Iraq's oil minister said on Saturday he sees no impact from the massive oil spill at a BP (BP.L: Quote) well in the Gulf of Mexico on Iraq's current or future projects to develop its giant oilfields.

BP has promised to pay damages to those hurt by the worst oil spill in U.S. history and has committed to a $20 billion fund for clean-up and other costs stemming from the spill. Its costs to date have topped $3 billion and the company's financial woes have triggered takeover speculation.

BP had said it would invest around $15 billion to develop Iraq's largest oilfield at Rumaila, where BP and its partner, China's CNPC, plan to boost output to 2.85 million barrels per day from around 1.066 million bpd.

"We don't see that the problem BP is facing would ever affect its work in Iraq, whether now or in the future," Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani told Reuters on Saturday.

"We are totally comfortable with the performance of BP in developing Rumaila," he said. "The pace of work (in Rumaila) is continuing quickly and according to the plan we agreed on with the company."

On Wednesday, BP boss Tony Hayward met with an Abu Dhabi state investment fund, part of a quest for cash to ward off takeovers and help pay for the oil spill. [ID:nLDE6660B7]

Shahristani also said Iraq's Oil Ministry is moving ahead with legal procedures to set up a joint venture, named Basra Gas Co, with Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L: Quote) and Japan's Mitsubishi (8058.T: Quote) to capture gas being flared at southern oilfields.

He said he could not comment on when the final contract for the multibillion-dollar deal would be signed after the cabinet approved it last month. [ID:nRAS932746] "Now we are taking the required legal procedures to set up the joint company, I don't know how long these procedures would take and I can't specify when we would sign the final contract," the minister said.

Baghdad takes aim at stray dogs

Baghdad officials said Saturday that 58,000 stray dogs have been killed in and around the Iraqi capital over the past three months as part of a campaign to curb an increasing number of strays blamed for attacks on residents.

A statement released from the Baghdad provincial government said 20 teams, made up of police shooters and veterinarians, had been moving around Baghdad and the outer-lying regions daily looking for and putting down the strays. The operation, which was first announced in 2008, truly took off in April after funds were allocated.

The surge in strays — estimated by provincial officials to have reached 1.25 million — is ironically linked to what officials say is an improvement in some elements of daily life in Baghdad, a city that for seven years has been struggling to return to normalcy after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

Officials with the provincial veterinary directorate said the dogs are eating more and having bigger litters.

Figures for the number of attacks by packs of stray dogs were not available Saturday, the last day of the weekend in Iraq.

But officials said resident complaints have increased steadily in tandem with the rise in the stray population. In the capital, dogs have attacked children, in some cases killing them.

Efforts since the campaign was first announced in 2008 met with limited success because of a lack of funding and follow-through. There are not believed to be any dog shelters in Baghdad.

The teams begin their work daily at 6 a.m., and coordinate with relevant security forces in the area — ostensibly to ensure that their presence does not draw retaliatory fire by security forces who may mistake them for insurgents.

Provincial officials said before the teams move into an area, residents are also notified, and warned to not pick up meat they find on the ground because it could be the poisoned food used to lure and kill the dogs.

Under Saddam Hussein's regime, stray dogs were routinely shot. But their numbers grew steadily following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion when a host of more serious security issues sidelined efforts to deal with the dogs.

Muted reaction to celebrated Lebanese Ayatollah Fadlallah's death

Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah was mourned by hundreds of thousands in Lebanon this week, but in Iraq's Shiite holy city of Najaf, where Fadlallah was born, the influential cleric received a chilly reception. No banners or open displays of mourning were seen as clergy in Najaf expressed discomfort over the ayatollah's legacy.

They faulted his relatively liberal religious teachings. In particular, some cited his defense of women's rights. Clergy also criticized Fadlallah's promotion of an activist role for clergy, far away from the more traditional school of noninterference advocated in Najaf.

"First of all ... Fadlallah belongs to the movement ... that interferes in politics, contrary to the classical or conservative schools that consider Najaf as a headquarters," said Sheik Nima Abbadi, a teacher of political sciences at the Hawza, Najaf's loose confederation of religious schools.

Abbadi said clergy in Najaf considered Fadlallah to be closer to the interventionist spirit of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of Iran's Islamic Republic.

Najaf's clergy appeared bothered by Fadlallah’s more liberal decrees for men and women in Islam.

"He allows people to shave their beards, and women to beat their husbands," one cleric said, on condition of anonymity.

The disavowals of Fadlallah could also stem from the healthy completion among clergy. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most senior cleric in Iraq, while associated with a hands-off approach to politics, has himself provided guidance to Iraq's democracy since 2003.

Fadlallah's ties to the founders of Iraq's Dawa Party could also have played a factor in Najaf's cool reception to him. Iraq's Shiite elite are divided over who should be the country's next prime minister, and the celebration of a cleric, considered an early Dawa Party member, may have proven unpopular in Najaf. Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, the current leader of the Dawa Party, follows Fadlallah's religious teachings. On Thursday, Maliki's office announced that the prime minister had gone to Beirut to pay his respects.

Latest Baghdad bomb blasts kill 7

Bomb blasts across the capital killed at least seven people yesterday, the last day of a Shi’ite religious pilgrimage. In addition, four pilgrims walking back from the ceremony were sprayed with gunfire outside the northern city of Kirkuk. One died; three were injured.

The bloody morning follows a series of blasts Wednesday that killed at least 50 people and wounded more than 250 in the city and surrounding areas. The most deadly was a suicide bombing in the Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiyah that killed more than 28 and wounded at least 136 people. Casualties in the attacks rose overnight, police said.

No one has claimed responsibility for any of the attacks.

More than 4 million people had gathered yesterday in the city to commemorate the death of the revered Shi’ite figure Imam Moussa al-Kadhim. Pilgrims had walked from across the country to reach the Shi’ite shrine, despite attacks in the previous days.

Also yesterday, four people were killed and five were injured in bomb attacks on officers’ homes in western Ramad, and a farmer was killed in a bomb attack in Kirkuk, police said.

Iraqi Parliament to Convene

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari says parliament will convene on July 13, which will mark only the second time lawmakers have met since the inconclusive national elections in March.

Zebari announced the meeting at a Thursday news conference in Irbil, the capital of the autonomous region of Kurdistan.

The announcement comes a day after bombings targeting Shi'ite pilgrims killed at least 50 people in Baghdad. Iraqi officials say at least 12 people were killed in similar attacks in the capital, Thursday.

Insurgents have intensified attacks across Iraq in recent weeks in an apparent attempt to exploit a political stalemate that resulted from the country's inconclusive elections in March.

No political group emerged from the election with enough parliamentary seats to form a majority. An alliance led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi won the most seats - two more than a coalition led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

However, Mr. Maliki has insisted he should run the government. His coalition has teamed up with the third-place Iraqi National Alliance.

Parliament convened briefly on June 14. Acting Speaker Fouad Massoum then adjourned the session, saying a speaker and a president for parliament would be chosen at a later date.

Attacks in Iraq kill at least 41, most of them pilgrims

The relentless violence intensified Wednesday evening, with at least 41 people killed by bomb attacks in the capital, an Interior Ministry official said. Another 174 people were wounded, the official said. The vast majority of the victims were Shiite pilgrims.

In the latest attacks, which occurred despite heightened security, a roadside bomb detonated in western Baghdad Wednesday evening, killing at least six pilgrims and wounding 30 others.

Another bombing, in central Baghdad's Haifa street, wounded nine pilgrims on Wednesday evening.

A suicide bomber struck at pilgrims in northern Baghdad's predominantly Sunni Adhamiya district as they were walking toward neighboring Kadhimiya, where hundreds of thousands of pilgrims had gathered to mark the anniversary of the martyrdom of Imam Musa al-Kadhim. Twenty-eight were killed and 81 were wounded, the official said.

Two roadside bombs left at least five pilgrims dead and 36 wounded in eastern Baghdad's mostly Shiite districts of New Baghdad and al-Fudhailiya, the official said.

A roadside bomb targeting pilgrims exploded in al-Bayaa, in southeastern Baghdad, wounding at least six. In central Baghdad, another five pilgrims were wounded in a roadside bomb blast.

Earlier Wednesday, soldiers at an army checkpoint west of Baghdad fired upon a vehicle driven by a suicide attacker when he refused to stop, Interior Ministry officials told CNN. The vehicle exploded, leaving one civilian dead and four Iraqi army soldiers and police wounded. It was unclear whether the attacker detonated the bomb or if shots fired at the vehicle triggered the explosion.

In another incident, a roadside bomb targeting an army patrol exploded in the Al-Jamia neighborhood of western Baghdad, wounding three soldiers.

A bomb attached to a police officer's car went off Wednesday as he was driving in the Dora neighborhood in southern Baghdad. The officer was killed, officials said.

The attacks came a day after bombings left at least nine dead and 43 wounded. Pilgrims have been targeted since Friday.

The capital is under tight security for the pilgrimage, with many roads blocked and a ban on motorcycles and bicycles in place.

Security measures include: Vehicles to transport pilgrims; thousands of deployed troops; security cameras in and around the shrine; aerial surveillance; and 500 personnel to combat the threat of female suicide bombers.

The Kadhimiya shrine is one of the holiest to Shiite Muslims around the world. The imam died more than 1,200 years ago.

At least 7 killed in Baghdad on last day of Shiite holiday

At least seven people were killed by bombs across the Iraqi capital Thursday, the last day of a Shiite religious pilgrimage. In addition, four pilgrims walking back from the ceremony were sprayed with gunfire outside the northern city of Kirkuk. One died; three were injured.


The bloody morning follows a series of blasts on Wednesday that killed more than 50 people and wounded more than 250 in the city and surrounding areas. The most deadly was a suicide bombing in the Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiyah that killed more than 28 and wounded at least 136 people. Casualties in the attacks rose overnight, police said.

No one has claimed responsibility for any of the attacks in the past few days.

On Thursday, more than 4 million people had gathered in the city to commemorate the death of the revered Shiite figure Imam Moussa al-Kadhim. Pilgrims had walked from all across the country to reach the Shiite shrine, despite attacks in the previous days. The attackers hit as tens of thousands of security forces patrolled the streets and most roads were blocked to allow pedestrians.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who was visitingLebanon on Thursday, condemned the blasts in Baghdad of the past two days, the Associated Press reported.

"Those who benefit from such acts are the enemies of humanity, the enemies of democracy," he said.

Militants have struck a heavy blow against the Shiite community in a bid to destabilize the nation in the midst of political uncertainty. The attacks come as Iraqi politicians remain deadlocked on the formation of a new government, four months after national elections.

Violence has dropped significantly since the height of the sectarian fighting that erupted in 2006, but some worry it will increase as the U.S. military draws down to 50,000 troops in the country by Sept. 1.

Also Thursday, four people were killed and five were injured in bomb attacks on officers' homes in western Ramadi; the dead included a woman and child. A farmer also was killed in a bomb attack in Kirkuk, police said.

Shiite pilgrims stream into Baghdad

Tens of thousands of Shiite worshippers streamed into the Iraqi capital on Wednesday amid heightened security for a major pilgrimage, a day after six people were killed in a string of attacks.

Around 25 people were also wounded in Tuesday's mortar and bomb attacks as they travelled to the mausoleum of Musa Kadhim, the seventh of the 12 revered imams in Shiite Islam, in Kadhimiyah, a district named in his honour.

Hundreds of tents have been erected to feed people as they pour into the city for the event, which reaches a climax on Wednesday night and early Thursday. The mausoleum has previously been targeted by bombers.

Traffic was banned on Tuesday on several bridges spanning the Tigris River, increasing already bad congestion in the capital, where traffic control is already complicated by hundreds of security checkpoints.

"Everything is going very well today," Major General Qassim Atta, a Baghdad security forces spokesman, told AFP, referring to special safety measures such as road closures put in place to protect worshippers.

"We continue to organise transport for pilgrims and air surveillance for their benefit," he said.

"The movement of motorcycles, bicycles and carts is banned throughout the city until further notice," Atta added, to reduce the risk of small vehicle-borne attacks.

The Shiite majority in Iraq have been a main target of Sunni armed groups in the wake of the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.

The shrine of Imam Musa Kadhim has not been spared. In April 2009, two female suicide bombers detonated their payloads near the shrine, killing 65 people, including 20 Iranian pilgrims, and wounding 120 others.

The threat of violence did not dent the enthusiasm of worshippers who spoke to AFP, some of whom were planning to pray for a breakthrough to the political hiatus that has blocked a new government taking office after elections.

"I will pray at the mausoleum for (Prime Minister Nuri) al-Maliki and (Iyad) Allawi to find an agreement so that our situation gets better," said Umm Amir, 40, who was wearing a black abaya and had travelled from Mahmudiyah, 30 kilometres (19 miles) south of Baghdad.

"Because our lives are very difficult," she said, accompanied by her neighbour Umm Sajjad on the journey and carrying a plastic bad filled with water and an orange for sustenance.

Hamid Taleb, 47, an unemployed man travelling with friends and relatives from Babil, a majority Shiite city south of Baghdad, said nothing would stop him from making the annual journey.

"Even in the time of Saddam I came across the fields despite it being forbidden to travel to attend," he said.

"I would make the pilgrimage whatever the situation is."

Al-Qaida in Iraq Confirms Death of 2 Leaders

Al-Qaida in Iraq has confirmed that two of its leaders were killed one week ago in a joint operation by U.S. and Iraqi forces.

A statement posted Sunday on Islamist websites says Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi were attending a meeting when U.S. and Iraqi troops engaged them in a battle and launched an air strike.

The statement quotes a senior figure in the Islamic State of Iraq militant group as saying the two al-Qaida commanders were steadfast in the pursuit of jihad, or holy war. The militant also urges the group's followers to keep fighting and transform the leaders' blood into "light and fire."

U.S. and Iraqi officials say Masri and Baghdadi were killed in a joint U.S.-Iraqi raid on a hideout near the northern city of Tikrit on April 18.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called the deaths a "potentially devastating blow" to al-Qaida in Iraq.

Militants carried out a wave of bombings Friday in apparent retaliation for the raid, killing at least 69 people in Shi'ite areas of Baghdad and other parts of Iraq.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki blamed the bombings on al-Qaida in Iraq, a Sunni Muslim group. No group has claimed responsibility.

Iraq bombings raise specter of Shiite militia

In offering to help Iraqi security forces to fight insurgents after a wave of deadly bombings in the capital, an anti-American Shiite cleric is sending a clear signal to the government: If you don't protect us, we'll protect ourselves.

Muqtada al-Sadr's statement raised the fearful specter that he might be considering reactivating his once-powerful militia known as the Mahdi Army, a move that would play into al-Qaida in Iraq's efforts to spark sectarian war.

Al-Sadr's aides, however, insisted on Saturday that the cleric wasn't threatening to send armed men onto the streets but was offering to help the government forces, who have been widely criticized for failing to protect the people as U.S. troops pull back.

The move comes as al-Sadr seeks to consolidate political power among Iraq's Shiites after a strong showing by his followers in March 7 parliamentary elections. The cleric, a staunch opponent of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, has emerged as a power broker who could play a key role in deciding the country's next leader.

Hours after bombs targeting Shiite mosques around Baghdad killed dozens of worshippers on Friday, al-Sadr urged his followers to remain calm and to do nothing to prompt U.S. forces to remain in Iraq any longer than their planned withdrawal deadline at the end of 2011.

But he added that he was prepared to provide "hundreds of believers" to join the Iraqi army and police to defend "their shrines, mosques, prayers, markets, houses and their towns."

He did not directly mention the Mahdi Army, which fought pitched battles with American forces and was blamed in some of the country's worst sectarian bloodshed before it was routed by U.S.-Iraqi offensives in 2008.

Senior al-Sadr aide Hazim al-Araji said Saturday that the cleric wants to "integrate the believers, and here I mean Mahdi Army people, in the security forces through official ways."

Sadrist lawmaker Hakim al-Zamili also emphasized that al-Sadr's statement was not meant to supplant the Iraqi military.

"This cooperation does not mean that Mahdi army would go back with arms to the streets or participating in any violent act. It is only a call for cooperation with the army and police," he said.

An Iraqi government spokesman did not return calls seeking comment Saturday. But al-Maliki's senior aide Ali al-Adeeb expressed doubt that the government would accept al-Sadr's offer.

"The government might ask the help of individual citizens, not from armed groups," al-Adeeb said. "Such integration might aggravate the situation and provoke the other sect that would demand to do the same."

Violence continued Saturday, as bombs hidden in three plastic bags exploded simultaneously in a billiard hall in a religiously mixed neighborhood in western Baghdad, killing 13 people and wounding 25, according to police and hospital officials.

Al-Sadr, who is widely believed to be based in Iran, has re-emerged as a prominent politician after announcing in 2008 that he was transforming his militia into a social welfare body with a few guerrilla cells to attack U.S. troops if the Pentagon refused to leave Iraq.

His bloc, which was part of a hard-line Shiite religious coalition, won 39 seats in the 325-member parliament, making him a sought-after ally as al-Maliki and secular rival Ayad Allawi jockey for the necessary majority support to govern.

The protracted wrangling has raised fears the political vacuum may allow sectarian violence that peaked after the 2006 bombing of a revered Shiite mosque in Samarra to rekindle. U.S. and Iraqi officials have credited Shiites so far for resisting retaliation.

Al-Sadr's offer may well be a political feint. His relationship with al-Maliki has been bitter at best since 2008 and his followers have frequently criticized the prime minister for failing to prevent bombings.

In offering his help — and expecting it to be rebuffed — al-Sadr can describe the militia as needed protection the next time his followers are attacked, according to Brett McGurk, an expert at the Council on Foreign Relations and former U.S. National Security Council official.

That, in turn, is exactly what the Sunni-dominated al-Qaida in Iraq wants: a loose-trigger Shiite adversary who might be easily goaded into sectarian fighting.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the Friday attacks that killed 72, most near Shiite mosques or places of worship, but al-Maliki and other officials blamed al-Qaida in Iraq. The bombings were widely seen as payback for the killings last weekend of two top al-Qaida in Iraq leaders — and the smug cries of victory by Iraqi and U.S. officials.

"Government officials should direct their full attention to combating terrorism rather than showing up on television all the time to boast about their achievements," said Baghdad political analyst Hadi Jalo. He called the killings of the terror leaders "of little significance because al-Qaida is always able to produce figures to lead and continue."

For his part, al-Maliki has been put in the uncomfortable position of having to woo al-Sadr and the support of his followers. But al-Maliki also can't afford to give al-Sadr carte blanche, and unleashing the Mahdi Army would be seen as a hostile step against Sunnis.

"We know from the bitter experiences of the past that any further integration of militiamen in the official security forces will definitely have a negative impact," said Mohammed Aqbal, a lawmaker with the Sunni Accordance Front.

On the streets of Baghdad's main Shiite enclave, Sadr City, where weeping crowds marched in funeral processions for victims of Friday's bombings, the idea of remobilizing the Mahdi Army for protection had some support.

"They can provide security. The government cannot," said Najim Abdul Hussein, who works near one of the explosion sites. "There is no stability."

2 Iraq tours, a tailspin _ and a tragic end

Coleman Bean went to Iraq twice, but his father remembers a stark difference in his son's two parting messages.

Before his first tour, his father recalls, his son said if anything happened to him, he wanted to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Before his second, four years later, he said he didn't want that any longer.

"He still was very patriotic, he believed in duty," Greg Bean says. "But he had sort of lost his commitment to what we were doing over there. His first tour ... had changed him."

Bean enlisted in the Army six days before the 9/11 attacks. He parachuted into Iraq in the first chaotic weeks of the war. When he returned a year later, he offered PG-rated, sanitized versions of his experiences.

"We got glimpses," the elder Bean says. "He didn't give us a lot of details."

Only later on, the elder Bean says, did he learn from Coleman's friends and Army buddies that his son was among those who'd witnessed a horrifying bus explosion across the street from a safe house in Iraq where he and other soldiers had holed up. Several Iraqis, including children, burned to death before their eyes.

There also was the shooting death of an Iraqi child riding in a car that inexplicably ran a roadblock. "Several shots were fired," the elder Bean says. "There was no way to know who killed the child."

Bean spent the remainder of his tour in Fort Polk, La., training soldiers about to deploy to Iraq. When his hitch ended in 2005, he came home to New Jersey.

He started displaying classic post-traumatic stress symptoms.

"He had trouble with his temper, he was drinking too much, he had trouble focusing, trouble sleeping," his father says. He worked as a bartender and a bouncer; he also considered college. Nothing clicked.

Bean's worried parents encouraged him to seek help.

In 2007, Bean went to a veterans hospital in New Jersey, which resulted in a PTSD diagnosis and a recommendation he enter a residential program or have outpatient counseling. But his father says when officials realized he was still active duty, they said he was under the Army's care and they couldn't help.

Bean didn't get any treatment and was ordered back for a second tour that summer. He was part of the Individual Ready Reserve, one of thousands of soldiers who no longer report to bases but who may be deployed to fill vacancies.

"He was scared, worried, apprehensive as the time got closer," his father recalls.

He offered his son an out.

"I'm a child of the '60s," the elder Bean says. "I said, 'We'll jump in a car and go to Canada. You don't have to go. We'll do whatever it takes.' He said, 'I signed up for it, I trained for it. I've got to go. ... If I don't, someone else will have to.' In the end, he believed he had an obligation. He sucked it up and went back."

Bean's second tour seemed to go better. He was promoted to sergeant. He helped guard convoys, and though that was dangerous, he was living on a base, a far more secure arrangement than his first deployment.

Bean had a positive attitude when he returned and talked about going back to college. But within months, the same troubling patterns emerged. He started drinking heavily, lost his temper, couldn't sleep and suffered panic attacks.

"We kick ourselves at this point," his father now says. "We probably should have been proactive. But he was a grown man with two combat tours. He didn't have to do exactly what mom and dad said."

It was only later, his father says, that he and his wife discovered confidential counseling programs that are appealing to soldiers who are reluctant to identify themselves and seek help in the federal bureaucracy.

On the first weekend of September 2008, Bean got drunk with friends, wrecked his Jeep Cherokee car and was arrested for driving under the influence. Bean was taken to a hospital, then rode home in a cab.

He had to break into his apartment because he didn't have his keys.

He also broke into his locked gun case.

Bean didn't call anyone or leave a note before he turned the gun on himself.

On Sept. 6, 2008 — seven years and one day after he enlisted — Sgt. Coleman Bean died. He was just 25.

6 killed by blasts in western Baghdad

Iraqi police say six people were killed when three bombs hidden in plastic bags exploded in western Baghdad.

The officials say another 19 people were wounded in the blasts.

The bombings struck late Saturday in an area where young people were playing billiards in a mixed, Sunni-Shiite neighborhood.

The blasts came one day after a series of bombings focused in Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad killed more than 70 people, raising fears that insurgent groups are trying to re-ignite sectarian violence.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Iraq factory explosion kills 5, cause unknown

Police and hospital officials say an explosion at an iron factory on the outskirts of a northern Iraqi city has killed five workers and wounded 15.

Police Chief Abdul-Khaliq Talaat said the cause of the Sunday explosion just outside the city of Irbil was not immediately known.

Irbil is located in Iraq's self-rule Kurdish region about 217 miles (350 kilometers) north of Baghdad.

An Irbil hospital worker confirmed the deaths.

 An al-Qaida front group in Iraq declared in a statement posted on the Internet Sunday that its two top figures have been killed.

The statement by the Islamic State of Iraq provided the first confirmation from the terror network of the April 19 claim by the Iraqi and U.S. governments that the two men were killed in a joint operation while hiding at a safe house near the city of Tikrit, north of Baghdad.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has described the death Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri as a "potentially devastating blow" to al-Qaida in Iraq. Their deaths also have provided Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki with a boost in his efforts to keep his job after his coalition finished second in parliamentary elections held March 7.

Sunday's statement said the death of al-Baghdadi and al-Masri would not affect the group's operations in Iraq after new members have joined the group recently. It also poured lavish praise on the two men.

"After a long journey filled with sacrifices and fighting falsehood and its representatives, two knights have dismounted to join the group of martyrs," the statement said. "We announce that the Muslim nation has lost two of the leaders of jihad, and two of its men, who are only known as heroes on the path of jihad."

The statement was posted two days after bombings mostly targeting Shiite places of worship killed 72 people in Iraq's bloodiest day so far this year. The bombings were seen as an apparent backlash by the Sunni-led insurgency after the slaying of the two al-Qaida leaders.

Nobody claimed responsibility for Friday's attacks, but Iraqi officials were quick to blame al-Qaida, which often targets Shiite mosques and religious processions in a bid to stoke new sectarian bloodshed.

Al-Maliki said the insurgents were fighting back after the deaths of their two leaders.

Car bomb hits police patrol in Baghdad, 5 wounded

A car bomb went off near a police patrol in western Baghdad on Wednesday and wounded five people, an Interior Ministry source said.

The attack took place shortly before sunset when a booby- trapped car parked near the intersection of Adel neighborhood exploded, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The blast damaged one of the patrol's police vehicles, wounding two policemen aboard, along with several nearby civilian cars, the source said, adding that three civilians were also wounded by the blast.

Sporadic attacks are still common in Iraq as part of recent deterioration in security which shaped a setback to the efforts of the Iraqi government to restore normalcy in the country just a few weeks before the March general elections.

Thousands of Secret Documents Are 'Core' of U.K. Iraq Inquiry

Tens of thousands of secret documents form the core of the ongoing inquiry into the Iraq war, its chairman revealed on Monday—far more than previously thought.
The inquiry also hinted that such documents showed British officials knew George Bush intended to invade Iraq even if they complied with the U.N. weapons inspections.

In a statement marking the end of a month of public testimonies by senior decision-makers broadcast live on the Web, inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcott said that secret documents allowed the panel to see what really went on.

“They allow us to shine a bright light into seldom-seen corners of the government machine, revealing what really went on behind the scenes, before, during, and after the Iraq conflict,” said Sir John.

The inquiry team will examine the documents over the next few months said Sir John, allowing the panel “to see where the evidence joins together and where there are gaps.”

After the examination of the documents, more of which he emphasized were still being received every week, the inquiry team would be in a position to decide who else to interview.

“We have no reason to believe that any material is being deliberately withheld,” said Sir John, emphasizing that access to documents is unrestricted.

The statement by Sir John followed the second quizzing of the foreign secretary at the time of the Iraq invasion, Jack Straw.
One exchange hinted that the panel had access to secret documents revealing that George Bush planned to attack Iraq even if Iraq complied with inspectors and was in compliance with crucial U.N. resolution 1441.

Sir Lawrence Freedman had asked Mr. Straw, “Was there any point where [Colin] Powell said to you that, even if Iraq complied, President Bush had already made a decision that he intended to go to war?”

When Mr. Straw said this was not the case, “to the best of my recollection,” and talked more broadly around the question, Sir Lawrence pressed him a few times on the issue.

Sir Lawrence Freedman said, "I was going to suggest you might want to look through your conversations and check."

“I will go through the records, because I think you are trying to tell me something,” said Mr. Straw.

Mr. Straw also said he had no recollection of Claire Short’s accusation that she had been “jeered at” by members of the Cabinet when she challenged the legality of the invasion. “This was a very serious Cabinet meeting. People weren't, as I recall, anyway, going off with that kind of behavior. We all understood the gravity of the decision,” she said. Short resigned as International Development secretary two months after the invasion of Iraq, and has been an outspoken critic of Mr. Blair and the Iraq war.

Mr. Straw had denied that the Cabinet discussion on the attorney general's advice on the legality of invasion had been blocked, and said that there was no way the members of Cabinet could be unaware of the finely balanced nature of the legal argument, given its wide attention in the media.

He said that Cabinet comprised strong-minded people.

"None of them were wilting violets; their judgment was that it was not necessary to go into the process by which Peter Goldsmith came to his view. I don't recall Cabinet as a whole receiving legal advice on the matter," said Mr Straw. "All [the Cabinet] wanted to know was: is it lawful or is it not lawful?" What was required in the end was "essentially a yes or no decision" from the attorney general, he added.

Mr. Straw stoutly defended his decision not to act on the advice of the Foreign Office legal adviser, Sir Michael Wood. “The legal advice he offered, frankly, was contradictory and I think I was entitled to raise that,” he said.

Sir John said that the inquiry hoped to meet with veterans from the Iraq war later this year, as well as with more top officials from the Bush administration.

Former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair told Fox news on Monday that the succession of probes into the invasion reflected our human inability to agree or disagree.

"There's always got to be a scandal as to why you hold your view. There's got to be some conspiracy behind it, some great deceit that's gone on, and people just find it hard to understand that it's possible for people to have different points of view and hold them … for genuine reasons. There's a continual desire to sort of uncover some great conspiracy, when actually there's a decision at the heart of it."

US frees Iraqi photographer held for 17 months

Ibrahim Jassam Mohammed, who worked for Reuters, was arrested in September 2008 in a dawn raid on his home.
The US said the photographer was a "security threat", but all evidence against him was classified secret.
An Iraqi court had ruled in December 2008 that there was no case against him and that he must be released, but the US military refused.
"How can I describe my feelings? This is like being born again." Mr Jassam told Reuters.
According to Reuters, the US accusations were based on his "activities with insurgents".
"The term 'insurgents' in Iraq generally refers to Sunni Islamist groups, like al-Qaeda. Jassam is a Shia Muslim," the news agency said.
The US military has detained a number of Iraqi journalists working for international news organisations, but none have been convicted.
It has been criticised by press freedom organisations such as Reporters Without Borders.

Iraq and Afghanistan wearing down the military, MPs warn

Conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are leaving the armed forces ill equipped to undertake any new operations, MPs have warned.

Britain's forces need a period of "effective recuperation" after operating at a rate well above official planning assumptions, a report by the Commons defence committee says today. "The MoD was unable to tell us how long it would take before the armed forces return to satisfactory levels of readiness", it says.

It describes how RAF pilots are unable to train because aircraft are tied up on operations, the navy has too many commitments and major exercises are having to be cancelled.

The report quotes Lieutenant General Sir Graeme Lamb, a senior commander, as saying that his fellow senior officers believed the army needed to expand from about 102,000 troops to 112,000 to meet demand.

The MPs say current defence planning assumptions – that the forces are supposed to be resourced to maintain one enduring medium-scale operation and one small-scale operation – are "out of step with what is happening in reality". The army has suffered particularly, working at "full stretch" with training exercises cancelled and the time between tours of duty cut. "Given the high tempo of operations over the last eight years it is not surprising that some senior army officers think there needs to be a bigger army."

The MPs point out that the other armed services are also affected. The navy has seen essential equipment – such as the replacement for the Type 23 frigate – delayed and the report questions whether it can continue with its commitments around the world. The RAF has a shortage of aircraft for routine training because of the number of its fighter jets and helicopters committed on operations overseas.

The report warns that any cuts in an emergency "stringency budget" after the next election could make the strategic defence review (SDR), promised by all the main parties, undeliverable.

"The thinking of easier times – when public spending on health, education and social security was increased by much more than that on defence – must not be allowed to continue into these troubled times," the report says.

Meanwhile the defence secretary, Bob Ainsworth, has told the committee that the plan to renew the Trident nuclear missile project will be excluded from the SDR due to be set up after the general election.

The shadow defence secretary, Liam Fox, said the report "exposes the damage that has been done across the armed forces by Labour's refusal to hold a proper review for over a decade".

"It is clear that radical reform is needed to ensure that our armed forces are best configured to defend British interests and that our procurement programme gets our troops what they need, when they need it," he said.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, the former head of the army, said war in Iraq and Afghanistan had taken its toll on troops and echoed Lamb's call for a boost to land forces.

"There is quite a strong argument to say that our land forces are not large enough, particularly units that may have done two or three tours in Iraq and are now on a second or third tour in Afghanistan," he told GMTV. "Inevitably and sadly we have taken a number of casualties and people are tired. So those units need to be stronger. If they were 10% or 15% stronger they would be more resilient to casualties and if people become ill or injured."

Iraq oil pipeline sabotaged

A pipeline carrying crude oil to a refinery in Baghdad has been sabotaged only days after going back online following years of being the target of attack, the oil minister said on Wednesday.
"Yesterday (Tuesday) evening, criminals sabotaged the pipeline with a bomb at Rashidiya, north of the capital," Hussein al-Shahristani said.
The attack "interrupted transport, causing a reduction in refining at the Dora station from 100,000 barrels a day to 70,000 barrels," he added.
"Ministry teams are working to repair it, and we hope it will be able to function again in a few days."

Iraq expels 250 former Blackwater guards

The Iraqi interior minister said on Thursday he had expelled 250 ex-employees of the American security firm Blackwater, whose guards were charged with killing unarmed civilians in Baghdad.
"We have sent an order to 250 former Blackwater employees, who today are working with other security companies in Iraq, to leave the country in seven days and we have confiscated their residence permits," said Jawad Bolani.
"All of those concerned were notified four days ago and so they have three days to leave. This decision was made in connection with the crime that took place at Nisur Square."
Bolani was referring to an incident at the busy Baghdad square in September 2007, when five guards employed by Blackwater were accused of killing 14 unarmed Iraqis in a gun and grenade attack, and wounding 18 others.
The case has become a running sore among the Iraqi population and uproar was sparked last year when a US judge dismissed charges against the guards, ruling that US prosecutors violated their rights by using incriminating statements they had made under immunity during a State Department probe.
US Vice President Joe Biden, during a trip to Baghdad last month, expressed his "personal regret" at the incident and said the American government would appeal the case.
The Baghdad government maintains that 17 people were killed by the guards, who were part of a convoy of armoured vehicles.
Blackwater Worldwide changed its name to Xe Services in February 2009, following what the company said was a switch of business focus.
However, critics suggested that the rebranding was an effort to polish an image tarnished by an alleged culture of lawlessness and lack of accountability among Blackwater staff.
In December, the New York Times reported that Blackwater took part in Central Intelligence Agency "snatch and grab" missions to capture or kill insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The North Carolina-based firm lost its contract to provide security for US embassy diplomats in Baghdad in May 2009 after Iraqis and critics repeatedly accused it of adopting a cowboy mentality to duties in the country.
Only days earlier the Iraqi government said it was considering lodging its own complaint against Blackwater to seek compensation for the families of the victims.
The admissibility of such a case, however, was doubted because all of the families except one had previously agreed damages from Xe, according to a lawyer injured in the incident.
The lawyer, Hassan Jabbar Salman, said the families of those killed were offered 100,000 dollars (73,000 euros) and those wounded received between 20,000 and 50,000 dollars from the US security firm.

American soldier dies in Iraq

The U.S. military says an American soldier has died in Iraq of injuries unrelated to combat.

A military statement says the soldier from United States Forces-Iraq died on Wednesday. The name of the soldier is being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

Thursday's statement also says the incident is under investigation. It provided no further details.

The death raises to at least 4,376 the number of U.S. military personnel who have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003. That's according to an Associated Press count.

Iraqi Who Worked for Reuters Is Freed by U.S.

An Iraqi freelance photographer who worked for Reuters has been released by the United States military after 17 months in detention in Iraq, the news agency reported Wednesday. The Iraqi, Ibrahim Jassam, was reunited with his family after his release.

“How can I describe my feelings?” Mr. Jassam told Reuters by telephone. “This is like being born again.”

Mr. Jassam was detained in September 2008 during a raid by Iraqi and United States forces on his home in the town of Mahmudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, Reuters reported. The Iraqi Central Criminal Court ruled in December 2008 that there was insufficient evidence to hold him. But the United States military refused to release him, saying it was not bound by the ruling because intelligence reports indicated that he was a security threat.

Reuters has said it asked about the evidence against Mr. Jassam but was told it was classified. “I am very pleased his long incarceration without charge is finally over,” David Schlesinger, the editor in chief of Reuters, said in a statement. “I wish the process to release a man who had no specific accusations against him had been swifter.” The United States military confirmed Mr. Jassam’s release but refused to provide any information about his case.

“The intelligence evidence that we have on him remains classified,” said Lt. Col. Patricia Johnson, spokeswoman for United States military detainee operations in Iraq.

Under a United States-Iraq security pact, the American military is required to hand over thousands of detainees to Iraq. About 6,000 detainees in United States custody are still waiting to be turned over to the Iraqi authorities. Since the United States-led invasion of 2003, the military has detained a number of Iraqi journalists working for international news organizations. None has been convicted in an Iraqi court.

In April 2008, the military freed Bilal Hussein, an Associated Press photographer who was part of a team that received a 2005 Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography from Iraq. He was freed after a little more than two years in detention.