US Secretary of State John Kerry has urged Iraq’s top Shi’ite leaders to give more government power to political opponents before a Sunni insurgency seizes more control across the country and sweeps away hopes of lasting peace.

US Secretary of State John Kerry has urged Iraq’s top Shiite leaders to give more government power to political opponents before a Sunni insurgency seizes more control across the country and sweeps away hopes of lasting peace.

Iraq has asked the US for air support in countering Sunni rebels, the top US general said last night, after the militants seized major cities in a lightning advance that has routed the Shi’ite-led government’s army.

Prominent international war crimes experts say they have received a huge cache of photographs documenting the killing of 11,000 detainees by Syrian authorities.

Al-Qaida-linked gunmen have captured a Syrian town near the Turkish border after heavy fighting with a rebel group, an activist group said.

The Syrian civil war now threatens to split the Middle East along a Sunni-Shi’ite chasm.

The ongoing violence in Egypt is playing into the hands of al-Qaeda and gives the group an opportunity to recruit new members as it denounces Western ideologies and democracy, writes Myra MacDonald

Austria announced it is withdrawing 377 UN peacekeepers from the Golan Heights after Syrian rebels briefly overran a crossing point near the border with Israel, a development that has deepened concerns the civil war is spreading to neighbouring countries.

Al-Qaida’s leader has urged Sunni Muslims to spare no effort to join the battle in Syria, overthrow President Bashar Assad and set up Islamic rule in the country.

Bombs struck Sunni areas in Baghdad and surrounding areas today, killing at least 76 people in the deadliest day in Iraq in more than eight months, officials said today.

Syrian troops have heavily shelled a rebel-held neighbourhood in the flashpoint central city of Homs as the military appeared to be readying to storm the area, activists said.

A wave of 16 bombings ripped across Baghdad today, killing at least 69 people in the worst violence in Iraq for months.

BAHRAIN has warned its nationals not to travel to Lebanon for their own safety after Iranian-backed Shi’ite Muslim group Hezbollah came out in support of weeks of protests by mainly Shi’ite demonstrators.

Iraqi MPs today unanimously approved a new government to be headed by incumbent Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, ending nine months of political deadlock.

At least 22 people have been killed and more than 50 injured in a car bomb explosion in an open-air market north of Baghdad, Iraqi officials said today.

Iraqi security forces have disrupted a 9/11-style plot by al-Qaida in Iraq to fly hijacked planes into Shiite religious shrines, Iraqi and US officials said.

Thousands of Iraqis marched through the city of Najaf today for an annual march to mark the anniversary of the fall of Baghdad.

US president Barack Obama praised Iraqis who turned out to vote in national elections despite “acts of violence” to discourage participation.

US President Barack Obama met Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to discuss security in the country in a surprise visit to the country today.

Eight Iraqi civilians were killed and four others were wounded when a suicide bomber driving an explosives-laden fuel tanker was fatally shot by police and his truck blew up near police headquarters in Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, police said today.

Iran is not building its nuclear capabilities to destroy Israel but to gain influence and prestige in a hostile region, writes Shlomo Ben-Ami

Sunni extremists seized control of a remote village north-east of Baghdad in a fierce battle with residents who pleaded for rescue by Iraqi army and police as they tried to defend their homes, the deputy provincial governor said today.

Attempts to pass a key oil law sought by the United States were snarled once more today by deep differences between Iraq’s Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders, delaying parliament debate on the benchmark legislation despite the prime minister’s claims of a breakthrough.

An arrest warrant against a Sunni Cabinet minister is another step by the Shiite-led government to marginalise the Iraq’s Sunni minority, the official’s political organisation said today.

FORTY years after the Six Day War, peace between Israelis and Palestinians seems as distant as ever.

Sunni and Shiite Muslims exchanged gunfire today in north-western Pakistan, where a week of sectarian violence has left at least 49 people dead and others 115 wounded.

A suicide truck bomber struck a police station in a mainly Sunni area of Baghdad today, killing at least 18 people, police said, as insurgents apparently step up their campaign against fellow Sunnis seen as collaborating with the US and the Iraqi government.

Fifteen people were killed and 27 wounded when a suicide truck bomber struck a car park in a mainly Shiite area of Baghdad today, police and hospital officials said.

Government and opposition supporters clashed at a Beirut university campus today, battering each other with sticks, stones and even pieces of furniture in new violence spilling over from Lebanon’s political crisis.

Iraqi security forces are doing everything they can to protect victims of sectarian violence in Baghdad, including families that are being driven from their homes in mixed neighbourhoods of Shiites and Sunni Arabs, a government official said today.

A day after Saddam Hussein was sentenced to hang, the Shiite-dominated government offered a major concession to his Sunni backers that could see thousands of members of the ousted dictator's Baath party reinstated in their jobs.

Iraq’s prime minister distanced himself from a raid by US and Iraqi forces today on Sadr City – the stronghold of the Shiite militia led by radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al Sadr.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, making a visit to Iraq, said today that its leaders have limited time to settle political differences spurring sectarian and insurgent violence.

Iraq’s prime minister announced a new plan aimed at ending the deepening crisis between Shiite and Sunni parties in his government and uniting them behind the drive to stop sectarian killings that have bloodied the country for months.

US forces seized hundreds of mortar rounds and rockets in a Sunni neighbourhood of Baghdad today, and detained two suspected terrorists.

THE largest Sunni Arab bloc in Iraq’s parliament said yesterday it was suspending its participation in the legislature until a kidnapped colleague was released, dealing a blow to efforts to involve the disaffected minority in the political process.

Iraq’s Prime Minister-designate Nouri al-Maliki said today that the formation of the Cabinet was “mostly complete,” but an influential Shiite group and some Sunni Arab politician signalled the deal was far from done.

Violence killed at least 34 people in Iraq, including a US soldier, as efforts to finish choosing the new cabinet bogged down yesterday in a web of conflicting interests.

Iraq’s Shiite alliance nominated tough-talking politician Jawad al-Maliki as prime minister, in a move that broke the long impasse over forming a new government to pull the country out of its sectarian strife.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari’s party will stick by him as the Shiite nominee for a second term and will put forward the name of a new candidate only if the premier decides to step aside, a top party official said today.

The Sunni Arab bloc in Iraq’s parliament remains opposed to a new term for Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and will ask the Shiites to present new names for consideration for the top government post, a Sunni spokesman said today.

Sunni Arabs are ready to end their boycott of talks to form a new government if rival Shiites return mosques seized in last week’s sectarian attacks and meet other unspecified demands, a Sunni official said today.

A car bomb exploded in a Shiite holy city and 13 members of one Shiite family were gunned down north-east of the capital today in a surge of attacks that killed at least 30 people despite heightened security aimed at curbing sectarian violence following the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine.

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