Reuters - In the holy Iraqi Shi’ite city of Najaf, Iranian tourists throng the streets, speak to shopkeepers in Farsi and pay in Iranian money. Farsi chants blare from speakers at a nearby shrine.
AP - Iraq’s Sunnis on Tuesday marked the start of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which ends the fasting month of Ramadan, by filling mosques in greater numbers than in previous years due to the drop in violence.
AP - As of Monday, Sept. 29, 2008, at least 4,175 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
McClatchy Newspapers - BAGHDAD Ahmed Qassim spent Monday mopping up blood and sweeping broken glass from his clothing shop in Baghdad’s Karrada neighborhood. It wasn’t how he’d hoped to mark the close of Ramadan, Islam’s holy month.
AP - Iraq will allow doctors to carry guns to protect themselves after hundreds have been targeted and killed since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, the government said Monday.
AP - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Monday that the government is ready to compromise to reach a security accord with the United States because Iraq still needs American troops despite the drop in violence.
AFP - Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani returned home Monday after heart surgery and warned that a delay in an agreement on the presence of US troops in the country beyond 2008 could undermine sovereignty.
AP - Excerpts of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s interview Monday with The Associated Press on the status of a deal being negotiated to set the terms to continue a U.S. military presence in Iraq:
AFP - US authorities have freed 2,404 detainees in the four weeks of Ramadan, the American military said on Monday, still short of the 3,000 they promised to release during the Muslim fasting month.
AP - Iraq’s Defense Ministry says it has bought new U.S.-built reconnaissance planes.