Iraq

BERLIN (AFP) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said his battle-scarred country was now safer and back in business, in a sales pitch in Germany after talks Tuesday with Chancellor Angela Merkel.

BERLIN - Four soldiers have been charged with conspiracy to commit murder in the deaths of detainees in Iraq in 2007, a U.S. military spokesman said Tuesday.

KIRKUK, Iraq (AFP) - Gunmen have shot dead an Iraqi journalist in a Kurdish neighbourhood of the northern oil city of Kirkuk, the city police chief Brigadier General Sarhad Qader told AFP on Tuesday.

STUTTGART, Germany - Three Iraqis who plotted to kill then-Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi during a 2004 visit to Germany are appealing their convictions.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. troop "surge" in Iraq that President George W. Bush ordered last year has ended after the last of five additional combat brigades left the country, a U.S. military spokesman said on Tuesday.

Baghdad - Following criticism from Republican presidential candidate John McCain that his rival had not spent enough time in Iraq, Democratic candidate Barack Obama made his second trip to Iraq Monday, meeting with American military commanders and upper-level Iraqi officials.

July 22 (Bloomberg) -- John McCain was unfairly treated by the New York Times, which rejected an opinion piece the Republican presidential candidate wrote on Iraq after publishing one by Democratic rival Barack Obama, a top McCain adviser said.

Text of statement by Sens. Barack Obama, Jack Reed and Chuck Hagel on their visit to Iraq:

The Democrat's visit is generating little attention in the Iraqi media - and little expectation of policy change

BAGHDAD - Two private security contractors died in a car bombing in the northern city of Mosul, the U.S. military in Iraq said Monday. Local officials said the contractors were Iraqi Kurds.

Both candidates, at least for now, seem to be moving closer together on Iraq. Which one will benefit?

MOYOCK, N.C. - Blackwater Worldwide said Monday that it planned a shift away from the security contracting business that earned it millions of dollars and made it a flash point in the debate over the use of security contractors in war zones.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush in 2002 branded Iraq, Iran and North Korea part of an "axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world" -- and he believes two of them still are, the White House said on Monday.

BAGHDAD - Iraq's security has improved so much, even as U.S. troop levels have dropped, that President Bush seems likely to order thousands more soldiers home by year's end.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and Iraq were unlikely to meet a July 31 deadline for completing a long-term security pact, but intensive negotiations were under way on an agreement that will help dictate the role of U.S. forces after year-end, the White House said on Monday.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The White House said Monday it would likely not reach a deal with the Iraqi government over its presence in the war-torn country before the end of the month.

July 21 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama met with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and military commanders in Iraq today as his approach for gradually withdrawing U.S. combat troops received fresh support.

BAGHDAD— Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki took advantage of Barack Obama's internationally watched visit Monday to set a two-and-a-half-year timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The White House said Monday that a planned US-Iraq long-term strategic agreement will not include a specific date for a withdrawal of US combat troops.

July 21 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama met with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and military commanders in Iraq today as his approach for gradually withdrawing U.S. combat troops received fresh support.

The prime minister may agree with the Democrat on a U.S. withdrawal, but that doesn't mean the two agree on everything

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Republican presidential hopeful John McCain said Monday that his Democratic rival Barack Obama will see during his trip to Iraq that he was wrong to oppose the troop "surge" strategy.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is popular among Iraqis.

July 21 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama arrived in Iraq today for meetings with U.S. generals as his approach for gradually withdrawing U.S. combat troops received fresh support.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama arrived in Baghdad on Monday on the next stage of a major overseas trip, the U.S. embassy said.

LONDON (AFP) - One of five Britons kidnapped in Iraq more than one year ago has committed suicide, the group holding them claimed in a video to a Sunday newspaper here, prompting condemnation from Gordon Brown.

July 20 (Bloomberg) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki hasn't endorsed any specific plan for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, a government spokesman said, a day after a magazine report that he backed Barack Obama's proposal.

CRAWFORD, Texas (AFP) - The White House has torn up its familiar playbook and is embracing diplomacy in addressing some of its thorniest foreign policy challenges -- among them stalemate in Iraq and Iran -- in the waning months of George W. Bush's presidency.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's top military adviser said on Sunday setting an unconditional two-year timetable for getting U.S. troops out of Iraq in two years would be dangerous.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces shot dead the 17-year-old son and another relative of the governor of northern Iraq's Salahuddin province in a raid on Sunday, local officials said.