AFP - Iraqi forces will begin evacuating from next week squatters illegally occupying the Baghdad homes of people who fled at the height of the sectarian conflict, officials said on Saturday.
AP - More than 11,000 Iraqis have been released from American detention centers this year, leaving nearly 20,000 still in custody, the U.S. military said Saturday.
Reuters - Iraq’s parliament must pass a
contentious elections law by mid-September in order to allow
anticipated provincial polls to be held this year, the
Electoral Commission said on Saturday.
AFP - The Iraqi army has replaced American troops in securing a refugee camp north of Baghdad where members of Iran’s main armed opposition group are grouped, Iraq’s defence ministry said on Saturday.
AFP - An Iraqi court on Saturday condemned to death a senior leader of the Mahdi Army Shiite militia over a killing spree last year that left 52 people dead in the central shrine city of Karbala.
AP - The government offices in Iraq’s Diyala province are encased in thick blast walls, a shield against suicide bombings. Nearby buildings are pockmarked from fighting between U.S. troops and Sunni insurgents.
AFP - The US military on Saturday said it has released 11,000 detainees from its prisons in Iraq so far this year. “These men, once considered a security threat to Iraqi civilians, as well as coalition and Iraqi forces, have completed their internment and can go on to lead productive lives,” the military said in a statement.
AP - As of Friday, Aug. 29, 2008, at least 4,151 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
AP - Some members of the civilian jury that acquitted a former Marine accused of war crimes in Iraq say they weren’t qualified to judge actions in combat, and military and legal experts said the case raises serious questions about whether federal prosecutors should even pursue such cases.
AP - The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, has given his military superiors and Defense Secretary Robert Gates his initial recommendation on when to resume a U.S. troop withdrawal and at what pace, a senior military officer close to the process said Friday.