Iraq’s government is urging all of its citizens living in Syria to return home immediately to escape being hurt or killed in the country’s escalating civil war.

Arab leaders will offer plans this week to break the political “stalemate” that has engulfed Syria but they will not demand the resignation of President Bashar Assad, Iraq’s top diplomat said today.

A suicide bomber blew himself up among dozens of Iraqi army recruits in Baghdad today in a devastating strike that officials said killed 51 people and wounded 119.

Barack Obama may say change is on the way, but many Iraqis aren’t counting on an immediate shift in US policy toward their country when the Democrat takes office as US president.

The Bush administration warned of “real consequences” for Iraq if it rejects a newly negotiated security pact.

IRAQI Premier Nuri al-Maliki last night said Washington and Baghdad have agreed there will be no foreign forces in Iraq after 2011, setting a timeline for a US withdrawal from the war-torn country.

NEGOTIATORS have finalised a deal that will see the complete withdrawal of US troops from Iraq by 2011, ending an eight-year occupation, the top official in the Iraqi team claimed.

The Turkish government is to seek parliamentary approval for a military operation to chase separatist Kurdish rebels who operate from bases in northern Iraq, a party official said.

The No 2 US commander in Iraq today said a 7-month-old security operation has reduced violence by 50% in Baghdad but he acknowledged that civilians were still dying at too high a rate.

US Democratic presidential contenders in Congress will cast a critical vote on the Iraq war this week, when politicians decide on a $120bn (€88bn) bill to keep military operations afloat.

A WOMAN with explosives hidden beneath her black abaya detonated them yesterday in a crowd of about 200 police recruits north-east of Baghdad, killing at least 16 people, police said.

Violence raked Baghdad today as an Iraqi general took charge of the security operation in the capital and Iraqi police and soldiers manned new roadblocks - initial steps indicating the start of the long-anticipated joint operation with American forces to curb sectarian bloodshed.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on Iraq’s neighbours and other nations today to reassure Iraq it has the world’s support as Iraqis work to secure and rebuild the country.

THE Iraqi government said yesterday a security cordon of 40,000 Iraqi soldiers and police will ring Baghdad starting next week in what it dubbed Operation Lightning.

Insurgents launched a series of attacks in Baghdad today, including car bombs and a mortar round, killing at least three Iraqis and wounding 12, officials said.

Freed hostage Giuliana Sgrena returned to Italy from Iraq on today hours after US troops fired on the car she was in, wounding her and killing an Italian intelligence officer who apparently tried to protect her.

Insurgents unleashed a wave of five car bombings across the capital, killing about a dozen people, despite stepped-up US and Iraqi measures to protect this month’s elections.

IRAQ’S interim government vowed yesterday to restore the death penalty and take a “sharp sword” to insurgents, but also promised an amnesty to any rebels who stop fighting.

Baghdad’s top police officer today urged international law enforcement chiefs to help him win a fierce battle to restore order on his city’s streets.

A year after Saddam Hussein’s statue was toppled in a central Baghdad square, US Marines are battling Sunni Muslims west of the capital.

The football landscape, like its political counterpart, is changing rapidly in Iraq since the fall of Saddam earlier this year. Erik Kirschbaum reports from Baghdad.

JUST days before US-led forces invaded Iraq, officials claiming to speak for a frantic Iraqi regime made a last-ditch effort to avert the war, but US officials rebuffed the overture, Pentagon officials said yesterday.

Iran has warned that an October deadline to prove its nuclear aims are peaceful could backfire and make Tehran even more secretive instead of opening up its programme to outside inspection.

The White House has released excerpts from a secret October 2002 intelligence document to demonstrate how flawed intelligence on Iraq’s nuclear weapons ambitions wound up in a speech by President George Bush.

Australia knew some US government agencies had reservations about claims Baghdad was rebuilding its nuclear weapons programme when it sent 2,000 troops to fight in Iraq, Prime Minister John Howard said today.

US president George W Bush again yesterday insisted Baghdad had a programme to manufacture weapons of mass destruction, seeking to rebut critics who say his administration’s credibility is at stake in the search for illicit arms.

Iran was quick to deny a report today that it was holding a top al-Qaida official, but it acknowledged it had not yet identified all the members of Osama bin Laden’s terror group it has in custody.

Washington has urged the United Nations to follow its example and lift economic sanctions against Baghdad.

Secret documents discovered in Baghdad are evidence of a direct link between Saddam Hussein’s regime and Osama bin Laden’s al Qaida terrorist network, according to a report today.

A massive convoy of US Marines swept down the main road to Baghdad today amid reports that Iraq’s Republican Guard was moving reinforcements south for a showdown.

BRITISH troops have discovered more than 100 bio-chemical protection suits in a command post abandoned by Iraqi troops, it was reported yesterday.

Special operations units in the US military have contacted Iraq’s notorious secret police to attempt to acquire documents showing Baghdad’s links with al-Qaida, it was reported today.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov today accused the United States of trying to step on Russia’s economic interests in Iraq.

IRAQ fired Scud missiles at Kuwait yesterday, officials said, sending US troops scrambling into chemical protective suits and setting air raid sirens blaring in Kuwait City.

Germany has ordered four Iraqi diplomats to leave the country on suspicion that they were involved in activities “incompatible with their diplomatic status”

Germany has ordered four Iraqi diplomats to leave the country on suspicion that they were involved in activities “incompatible with their diplomatic status”

IRAQ destroyed two more banned al-Samoud missiles yesterday and said it had sent in another report proving it had destroyed VX nerve gas in 1991.

IRAQ will send a report on its disposal of VX nerve agent to chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix today and another report on anthrax a few days later, a diplomatic source said.

Iran has agreed to release all prisoners from the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and Iraq will release all Iranians in its jails, Iraq’s Foreign Ministry said today.

Spain is open to changes in a United Nations resolution that would pave the way for war with Iraq, but any alterations must ensure Saddam Hussein’s “total disarmament”.

IRAQ scrapped six more banned al-Samoud 2 missiles and three warheads yesterday, and UN inspectors searched for bombs capable of delivering biological weapons Baghdad says were destroyed and buried.

A MIXED report from UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix yesterday left the major powers more divided than ever on US plans to launch a war against Iraq within a short time.

THE United States has ordered 60,000 more troops to the Gulf, despite signs that a war on Iraq might be delayed until April, as big powers and ally Turkey persisted yesterday in complicating its military plans.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday said “time is running out” for efforts to prevent war on Iraq.