PRIME Minister Nuri al- Maliki said yesterday Iraq’s own soldiers and police were capable of defending a “sovereign and independent” country as American forces ended seven years of combat operations.

RECENT Comments by Justice Minister Dermot Ahern (Irish Examiner, January 4) that the annual security bill at Shannon for US military traffic is justified shows scant regard for the lives or human rights of the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The number of civilians suffering violent deaths in Iraq fell by almost two-thirds this year according to a campaign group which released new figures today.

The number of civilians killed in the Iraq war is incalculable.

Iraq has reported that about 12,000 civilians were killed last year – the third full year since the US-led invasion – with a dramatic rise in the last three months, when 5,000 died.

A series of attacks in eastern Baghdad this evening killed at least 39 people and wounded 115 within half an hour, police said.

IRAQ marked the third anniversary of the US-led invasion with a fresh spate of killings, a deadlock over the new government and warnings of civil war as Shi’ites gathered in the south for a major religious ceremony.

Some Iraqis sympathised with US forces today after hearing the American death toll in the Iraq war had reached 2,000.

ALMOST 25,000 Iraqi civilians were killed violently in the two years after United States-led troops went into the country, with more than a third of the deaths caused by Allied forces, according to a report released yesterday.