Iraq

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Four Iranian embassy staff and their Iraqi driver were wounded when their convoy was shot at in the Iraqi capital, the embassy and Iraqi officials said on Friday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, leading an offensive against al Qaeda in the north, offered cash and freedom from prosecution on Friday to fighters who give up their weapons within 10 days.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Matthis Chiroux is the kind of young American US military recruiters love.

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The radical movement of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr voiced optimism on Friday that a truce with the Iraqi government will hold, but also called on the faithful to drive out occupying US forces.

BAGHDAD - An Iranian Embassy convoy came under fire in Baghdad, wounding two Iranian diplomats and two other staff, a spokesman said Friday. Tehran accused the United States of encouraging attacks against Iranian interests in Iraq.

BAGHDAD - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has offered members of armed groups in Mosul an amnesty in exchange for surrendering their weapons.

BAGHDAD - Gunmen ambushed an Iranian Embassy convoy in Baghdad, wounding three Iranians, including two diplomats, and an Iraqi, a spokesman said Friday.

Democrats say McCain was willing to negotiate with Hamas ... After GOP stumbles in the South, Obama warns Republicans about critical ads ... Democratic Party panel members show little interest in Clinton's call to seat disputed delegates ... Obama picks up endorsements from former Edwards delegate, California congressman

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Dozens of Iraqis gather in a dimly lit room to scan hundreds of pictures on computer screens -- disfigured images of burnt faces, blown up body parts, beheaded corpses.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Republican John McCain declared for the first time Thursday he believes the Iraq war can be won by 2013, although he rejected suggestions that his talk of a timetable put him on the same side as Democrats clamoring for full-scale troop withdrawals.

SEATTLE - A Justice Department team has traveled to Iraq to investigate the fatal shooting of an Iraqi guard by a security contractor, hastening the resolution of questions about whether U.S. attorneys can prosecute him, an official said Thursday.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States has warned Beijing over reported use of Chinese weapons by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the Asian giant's continued sale of arms to Iran, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said.

WASHINGTON - President Bush's Iraq war funding request collapsed in the House Thursday as anti-war Democrats and Republicans unhappy about added domestic funding combined to kill — for now — $163 billion to support U.S. troops overseas.

As of Thursday, May 15, 2008, at least 4,078 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

BAGHDAD _Three employees of the Iranian embassy and their Iraqi driver were shot and wounded as they traveled Thursday to the Shiite Kadhemiyah Shrine in northern Baghdad.

Highlights of a House bill originally intended to pay for military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan into next spring before anti-war Democrats and Republicans combined to kill its top component — a much-needed influx of funding for overseas troops. The money will be revived by the Senate next week.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives, in a surprise and largely symbolic move, defeated legislation on Thursday to fund the war in Iraq for another year.

May 15 (Bloomberg) -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain said he intends to end the Iraq War and have most U.S. troops home by the end of his first term while denying he was setting a timetable for withdrawal.

WASHINGTON— U.S. military and diplomatic officials in Baghdad have cut off contact with controversial Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi, a former Pentagon favorite, because of his increasingly strained relationship with U.S.-backed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, U.S. officials in Baghdad and Washington told McClatchy.

May 16 (Bloomberg) -- John McCain, who is trying to strike a distance from the policies of President George W. Bush, accuses Saudi Arabia of sponsoring insurgents in Iraq and condemns it for human-rights violations, including imprisoning people whose ``only crime is to worship God in their own way.''

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday defeated legislation that would have funded the war in Iraq for another year, in a surprise move that the Senate could overturn.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US House of Representatives Thursday rejected 163 billion dollars in emergency spending for Iraq and Afghanistan, in an unexpected but symbolic twist to a fierce political battle over war funding.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain said on Thursday he believes the Iraq war can be won by 2013, leaving a functioning democracy there and allowing most U.S. troops to come home.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen opened fire on a car carrying three Iranian embassy staff in Baghdad on Thursday, wounding them and their Iraqi driver, a spokesman for the Iranian embassy said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would get expanded education benefits, while unemployment benefits for jobless Americans would be lengthened under legislation passed on Thursday by the House of Representatives.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives defied President George W. Bush by passing legislation on Thursday that would set the end of 2009 as the goal for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

WASHINGTON - A poorly run Pentagon program for providing workman's compensation for civilian employees in Iraq and Afghanistan has allowed defense contractors and insurance companies to gouge American taxpayers, a House committee said Thursday.

MOSUL, Iraq (AFP) - Iraqi security forces carried out mass arrests in the main northern city of Mosul on Thursday as a major crackdown against Al-Qaeda entered its second day, officials said.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Defying a White House veto threat, the US House of Representatives Thursday took up a 163 billion dollar emergency budget for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which includes troop pullback timelines.