Eight United States soldiers were killed in Iraq on Sunday, including six who died along with a European journalist in a roadside bomb attack north of Baghdad, the US military said. Earlier, a car bomb killed 35 people and wounded 80 next to a crowded market in a Shi’ite district of Baghdad.
A suicide bomber wearing a vest packed with explosives killed more than 20 people when he blew himself up among mourners at a Shi’ite funeral north of Baghdad on Monday, Iraqi police said. Also, five US soldiers were killed in Iraq over the weekend, raising the number of American troops killed this month to more than 100.
A suicide bomber killed eight people in the Iraqi Parliament on Thursday, slipping through multiple checkpoints in a brazen strike that challenged a major United States-backed security crackdown in Baghdad. The blast tore through a café where lawmakers were having lunch. State television said three of the dead were lawmakers.
An explosion rocked a restaurant inside the Iraqi Parliament in Baghdad while lawmakers were having lunch on Thursday and local media said two were killed. If confirmed as a bomb, the blast would represent one of the worst security breaches of the heavily fortified Green Zone.
More than 1 000 United States and Iraqi troops launched a pivotal incursion into a Shi’ite militia bastion in Baghdad on Sunday, meeting no resistance as they searched homes for illegal weapons and carried out patrols. A US military statement said 600 American and 550 Iraqi security forces backed by American Stryker armoured vehicles took part in the operation.
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/ 16 February 2007
United States and Iraqi forces are meeting little resistance as they sweep through Baghdad, a US officer said on Friday, a day after Iraq’s president said a Shi’ite militia had ordered its leaders to leave the country. The head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, was wounded on Thursday, an Interior Ministry source said.
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/ 4 February 2007
Iraq’s government renewed its pledge to crack down on militants after a massive suicide truck bomb killed 135 people in a mainly Shi’ite area of Baghdad. Saturday’s attack was the deadliest single bombing since the United States-led invasion in 2003.
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/ 27 November 2006
Israelis and Palestinians have seen truces collapse before. That is why no one wants to call the ceasefire in Gaza a turning point to reviving peace talks. If other hurdles can be crossed such as striking a deal to free an Israeli soldier held captive in Gaza and if Palestinian factions can forge a unity government, the weekend truce should be a springboard to substantive contact between the two sides.
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/ 22 November 2006
Israel’s security Cabinet on Wednesday agreed to press on with military raids and ”targeted killings” in Gaza but did not order a large-scale assault in response to a wave of Palestinian rocket attacks. A government statement said the security forces had been told to prepare and present a plan for a broader operation.
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/ 19 September 2006
The Israeli army said on Tuesday it could complete a pull-out from southern Lebanon within a few days as the United Nations said the number of peacekeepers in the devastated country had reached 5 000. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has said such a level of peacekeepers on the ground in southern Lebanon should enable Israel to finish its withdrawal.