Iraq

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The US-led multinational force in Iraq has cleared American soldiers of any wrongdoing after they shot dead three civilians in June, a statement by the military said on Monday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military said an investigation into an incident in which American troops killed three Iraqis near Baghdad airport last month showed the victims were not criminals but innocent civilians.

BAGHDAD - In the flatlands north of Baghdad sits a prison with no prisoners. It holds something else: a chronicle of U.S. government waste, misguided planning and construction shortcuts costing $40 million and stretching back to the American overseers who replaced Saddam Hussein.

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Three suicide bombers, believed to be women, killed 25 Shiite pilgrims on Monday as they headed to a holy shrine in Baghdad for a major religious ceremony that has been marred by bloodshed in the past.

KIRKUK, Iraq (AFP) - A suicide bomber killed at least 11 people and wounded more than 50 others in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Monday, security officials told AFP.

BAGHDAD - Officials say at least 11 people have been killed and 54 wounded when a suicide bomber struck a Kurdish rally in the disputed city of Kirkuk in Iraq's north.

BAGHDAD - Police say three suicide bombers and a roadside bomb struck Shiite pilgrims taking part in a massive religious procession in Baghdad, killing at least 24 people and wounding 72.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Three bomb attacks in quick succession killed at least 11 people and wounded 33 in Baghdad on Monday as Shi'ite pilgrims flooded into the Iraqi capital for a major religious event, police said.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Millions of dollars were likely wasted on a 900 million dollar army contract to build courthouses, prisons, police and other security facilities in Iraq, an audit released Monday has found.

BAQUBA, Iraq (AFP) - The US military has adopted tactics first used by French soldiers more than 50 years ago in Algeria, as it seeks to subdue Al-Qaeda remnants in one of Iraq's most violent cities.

BAGHDAD -- The U.S. military said Sunday that the three people killed last month after U.S. soldiers shot at their car in one of the most secured areas of Iraq were civilians, not criminals as the military initially reported.

BAGHDAD -- The top U.S. military commander in Iraq isn't buying the increasingly popular idea of a withdrawal timetable for American troops.

WASHINGTON - Presidential challenger John McCain said Sunday that he supports a proposed ballot initiative in his home state that would prohibit affirmative action policies from state and local governments. A decade ago, he called a similar effort "divisive."

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military admitted Sunday that American soldiers killed innocent civilians after opening fire on a car last month on the heavily secured Baghdad airport road.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - White House rivals John McCain and Barack Obama traded accusations of policy U-turns on Iraq Sunday after the Democrat's return from a much-acclaimed overseas tour.

AMMAN (AFP) - Jordan is seeking six billion dollars from international donors to build a railway link with its neighbours and plans to import Iraqi crude oil by rail, the transport ministry said on Sunday.

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Pilgrims flooding Baghdad for one of Shiite Islam's key religious festivals hailed tight new security measures in Iraq's capital although authorities were wary on Sunday of potential bomb attacks.

The deaths of a bank employee and two women, apparently shot by American soldiers, has incited a wave of Iraqi anger

LONDON - A committee of British lawmakers demanded an investigation Sunday into whether a senior army general and a top defense official lied to them about the British military's use of banned interrogation techniques in Iraq.

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's military said on Sunday its fighter jets hit 12 Kurdish separatist targets in northern Iraq's Qandil region in an operation that started at midnight.

ANKARA, Turkey - Turkish warplanes on Sunday bombed 12 Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq, the military said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said in an interview published on Saturday the size of a residual U.S. force left in Iraq after the withdrawal of combat troops would be "entirely conditions-based."

LONDON - Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama brushed aside Republican criticism of his overseas trip on Saturday and stood outside the famed 10 Downing Street to say that both President Bush and Sen. John McCain were moving his way on the key issues of Iraq and Afghanistan.

BAGHDAD - The United States is now winning the war that two years ago seemed lost. Limited, sometimes sharp fighting and periodic terrorist bombings in Iraq are likely to continue, possibly for years. But the Iraqi government and the U.S. now are able to shift focus from mainly combat to mainly building the fragile beginnings of peace — a transition that many found almost unthinkable as recently as one year ago.

BAGHDAD - For years, extremist Iraqi detainees in U.S. custody held self-styled Islamic courts and tortured or killed inmates who refused to join them, military officials said, disclosing new details about the use of American prisons to recruit for the insurgency.

WASHINGTON - Sen. Jack Reed says America can't afford the Republican strategy of continuing to write blank checks for the Iraq war.

Why pick on Iraq now, they ask, when sports corruption under Saddam Hussein was so much worse?

BAQUBA, Iraq (AFP) - In the war-ravaged streets of Iraq, US-led forces say insurgents are recruiting women driven by despair or revenge to act as suicide bombers in the latest tactic against coalition troops.

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraqi politicians are reviewing a rejected bill on provincial elections and will return it to parliament with fresh suggestions within 48 hours, a senior official said on Saturday.

DENVER - Republican presidential candidate John McCain, ridiculing Barack Obama for "the audacity of hopelessness" in his policies on Iraq, said Friday that the entire Middle East could have plunged into war had U.S. troops been withdrawn as his rival advocated.