AN ex-soldier charged with raping and killing a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and slaying her family set the girl’s body ablaze after shooting her several times, prosecutors said during opening statements at his federal trial.

NATO forces said yesterday it would not let up the fight against Taliban insurgents during the Afghan winter and co-ordinated operations with the Pakistani army would likely hamper the militants’ traditional rest from combat.

David Petraeus, the American general who presided over Iraq’s pull back from the brink of all-out civil war, relinquished his command today to General Ray Odierno under a cascade of official thank-yous.

Three US soldiers who were gunned down during a three-hour firefight last week may have been killed by fire from their American comrades, US military officials in Iraq said.

DIRECTOR Brian De Palma stunned the Venice Film Festival yesterday with his harrowing new film about the horrors of the Iraq war.

A US soldier has been sentenced to 100 years in prison for the gang rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and the killing of her family last year.

A US soldier was sentenced today to 18 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to murdering three detainees during a raid on a suspected al-Qaida compound in Iraq last year.

A soldier was sentenced to 90 years in prison with the possibility of parole in 20 years for conspiring to rape a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and kill her and her family.

A former US soldier has been charged over the rape and death of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the murders of three of her relatives.

FOUR soldiers from the US Army’s 101st Airborne Division will face a court-martial for the alleged rape of an Iraqi girl and the murder of her family, and two will face the death penalty, the military ordered yesterday.

Four American soldiers who face charges in connection with the rape and killing of 14-year-old girl and the murder of her family should face a court martial, a US Army investigator has recommended.

Rescue crews pulled bodies from the rubble of bombed buildings today, the day after a barrage of co-ordinated attacks across eastern Baghdad neighbourhoods killed at least 64 people and wounded more than 280 within half an hour, police said.

Gunmen sprayed grenades and automatic weapons fire in a market south of Baghdad, killing at least 50 people, mostly Shiites yesterday.

A Jordanian who was responsible for slaughtering two US soldiers last month was fatally wounded in a clash with security forces, a senior Iraqi official said today.

Defence attorneys requested a gag order today that applies even to US President George Bush and other high-ranking federal officials in the case of a former Army private accused over the rape and killing of a young Iraqi.

Four US soldiers have been charged with rape and murder and a fifth with dereliction of duty in the alleged rape-slaying of a young Iraqi woman and the killings of her relatives in Mahmoudiya, the military said on Sunday.

THE US Army has charged three soldiers in connection with the murders of three Iraqi men who were in military custody in Iraq in early May, the military said yesterday.

The US Army has charged three soldiers in connection with the murders of three Iraqi men who were in military custody in Iraq in early May, the military said today.

News of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s death trickled in to the US Marines camp outside the battle-scarred city of Fallujah today, bringing the troops a vague sense of satisfaction.

Insurgents blew up a small Shiite mosque north-east of Baghdad today, while police reported the discovery of nearly 40 bodies in several neighbourhoods of the Iraqi capital. The US military reported the death of three American soldiers.

AMERICAN and Iraqi troops swept the oil-rich region of Kirkuk for suspected insurgents and captured dozens, while drive-by shootings, roadside bombings and sectarian violence killed at least 29 people in Iraq yesterday.

American and Iraqi troops pushing through a desolate area of Iraq’s Sunni Arab heartland yesterday rounded up dozens more suspected insurgents, including alleged killers of a television journalist, US and Iraqi officials said.

The Muslim pilgrims’ road to the holy city of Karbala became a highway of bullets and bombs for Shiites yesterday. Drive-by shootings and roadside and bus bombs killed or wounded 19 people, ratcheting up the sectarian tensions gripping Iraq.

US and Iraqi troops pressed their sweep through a 100-square-mile swath of central Iraq yesterday in a bid to break up a centre of insurgent resistance, the US military said. No resistance or casualties were reported.

Heliborne US and Iraqi troops pressed their sweep through a 100-square-mile section of central Iraq today in a bid to break up a centre of insurgent resistance, the US military said. No casualties were reported on either side.

A WAVE of sectarian rage swept across Iraq yesterday leaving at least 110 people dead and the violence-wracked country careering towards civil war.

Gunmen in Iraq shot dead 47 civilians and left their bodies in a ditch near Baghdad today as militia battles and sectarian reprisals followed the bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine yesterday.

Four US soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division have been killed when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, the US military said today.

TWO suicide bombers wearing police uniforms and holding security passes tried to attack National Police Day celebrations yesterday, with police shooting one to death and the other exploding his vest, killing 29 people.

Insurgents exploded a suicide car bomb and launched two mortar shells at Iraq’s Interior Ministry during National Police Day celebrations today, killing 29 people and injuring 18.

Five US soldiers were killed today and five others were wounded in a pair of roadside bombings in northern Iraq, the US military said.

A suicide attacker killed at least 15 people and wounded 20 more in a Shiite funeral procession today north of Baghdad, while a car bomb exploded near a market just outside the capital killing 13 people and wounding 21, police said.

A car bomb killed at least 13 people and wounded 21 today when it exploded near a market outside the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

Rock legend Jimi Hendrix pretended he was gay to get out of the US Army, a new biography reveals.

SERGEANT Hasan Akbar was noted by officers to have had an “attitude problem” earlier in his army career.

A US military jury in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, has sentenced a soldier to death for a grenade and rifle attack on his own comrades during the opening days of the Iraq invasion.

A military jury in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, sentenced a soldier to death on Thursday for a grenade and rifle attack on his own comrades during the opening days of the Iraq invasion, a barrage that killed two officers and that prosecutors said was driven by religious extremism.

A US Army investigation found systematic abuse and possible torture of Iraqi prisoners at a base near the northern city of Mosul, just as top military officials became aware of abuse allegations at Abu Ghraib, documents show.

Belgium’s King Albert and other dignitaries marked the 60th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge today, honouring thousands of American soldiers who died fighting Nazi Germany’s desperate bid to stop the Allied advance across Western Europe.

A search is underway today for two crew members of a US helicopter that crashed in Iraq’s Tigris river while searching for a missing soldier, the US military said.

Two pilots were missing today after a US military helicopter crashed in the Tigris River in the town of Mosul while searching for a soldier.

US forces moved a step closer to the most wanted man in Saddam Hussein’s regime yesterday, detaining his four nephews in a pre-dawn raid and capturing another top fugitive thought to be a paymaster in the anti-coalition insurgency.

An Apache helicopter that crash-landed near the northern city of Mosul may have been hit by ground fire while making a low pass over the area, US soldiers said.

A SUICIDE car bomber wounded 58 US soldiers and three Iraqis yesterday when he charged the gates of a US military base and blew up his vehicle as troops opened fire.