A video posted online purports to show the leader of the Islamic State extremist group that has overrun much of Syria and Iraq delivering a sermon at a mosque in Iraq.

Hopes for the quick formation of a new Iraqi government have been dashed after the first session of parliament failed to make progress.

Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric yesterday stepped up the pressure on politicians to agree on Iraq’s next prime minister, after incumbent Nouri al-Maliki lost the confidence of former allies in the fight against Sunni militants.

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.

The United States has ordered an aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf as it laid out specific ways for Iraq to show it is united in order to gain assistance in its fight against Islamic insurgents.

Barack Obama has vowed that the United States will not be “dragged back” into military action in Iraq as long as leaders in Baghdad refuse to reform a political system that has left the county vulnerable to a fast-moving Islamic insurgency.

Militants who seized large areas of Iraq’s Sunni heartland with lightning advances this week have pushed into an ethnically mixed province and captured two towns north east of Baghdad, officials said.

Al-Qaida-inspired militants have pushed deeper into Iraq’s Sunni heartland, conquering Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit as soldiers and security forces yielded ground once controlled by US forces.

Al-Qaeda-inspired militants seized effective control of Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, expanding their offensive closer to the Iraqi capital as mass beheadings were being reported.

Al Qaida-inspired militants have seized control of Saddam Hussein’s home town of Tikrit.

Iraqis began voting in key elections for a new parliament as the country slides deeper into violence more than two years after US forces left.

Iraq’s prime minister has warned that weapons and fighters flowing into Syria are now making their way to Iraq, as a rising tide of violence sweeps across the country.

Two car bombs have exploded in sprawling Shiite neighbourhoods of the Iraqi capital killing at least 12 civilians and wounding 30, officials said.

Iraqis braved the fear of violence today to vote in the first election since the US military withdrawal, though delayed voting in some parts of the country and an apparently lacklustre turnout elsewhere has cast doubt about the credibility of the vote.

Iraq's fugitive vice president has declared his "absolute innocence" and rejected the terror trial that sentenced him to death on charges of masterminding the murder of rivals.

Gunmen singled out seven Shiite Muslims and shot them in Iraq’s north while they were out swimming in a targeted sectarian attack, officials said today.

At least 25 people have been killed after two car bombings hit a religious procession in the Iraqi capital.

Co-ordinated car bombings targeting Shiite pilgrims in four Iraqi cities killed at least 56 people today in the latest wave of sectarian-fuelled violence, officials said.

Twelve people have been killed in a series of bombings in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

Two explosions have been heard in central Baghdad as an Arab summit opened in the Iraqi capital.

Fourteen people were killed and more than 75 injured in a wave of car bombings across Baghdad today as violence surges in Iraq amid an escalating political crisis a month after the US military withdrawal.

Years of conflict and violence have left an indelible mark on Iraqi citizens, their lands and their future. But it is the Iraqis’ resilience, and indeed their black humour, which strikes a chord with Political Reporter, Juno McEnroe

A series of bombs targeting the homes of Iraqi police on has killed two children and wounded nine other people.

Iraq’s prime minister called today for unity and greater political stability to ensure the country’s security after the end of the American military presence.

A wave of bombings has hit Baghdad, killing at least 60 people in the worst violence Iraq has seen for months.

Eight people have died today after three bombs ripped through a sprawling Baghdad market at the beginning of a Muslim festival.

US President Barack Obama has declared an end to the Iraq war and said all US troops will be withdrawn from the country by the end of this year.

A series of blasts hit a Shiite holy city in Iraq today, killing at least 10 people and wounding scores of others.

A RELENTLESS barrage of bombings killed 63 people yesterday in the most sweeping and coordinated attack Iraq has seen in over a year, striking 17 cities from northern Sunni areas to the southern Shi’ite heartland.

Frequent bombings, assassinations and a resurgence in violence by Shiite militias have made Iraq more dangerous now than it was just a year ago, a US government watchdog concludes in a report released today.

Iraqi forces have stormed a settlement of Iranian exiles near the two nations’ border that prime minister Nouri al-Maliki has long sought to expel.

THOUSANDS marched on government buildings and clashed with security forces in cities across Iraq yesterday, in the largest and most violent anti-government protests here since political unrest began spreading in the Arab world several weeks ago.

Demonstrators are converging on Baghdad’s Liberation Square as part of an anti-government rally dubbed the “Day of Rage”.

Two car bombs tore through car parks packed with Shia pilgrims today in an Iraqi holy city, pushing the death toll from a week of attacks to more than 170.

Anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who led several Shiite uprisings against American forces in Iraq before travelling to neighbouring Iran three years ago, has returned to Iraq.

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.

Iraq’s president asked incumbent prime minister Nouri al-Maliki to form a new government today.

A roadside bomb has exploded in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, narrowly missing a member of a Sunni-backed political group but killing one of his bodyguards, officials said.

Iraq's parliament approved key leadership positions today in the first step towards forming a new government, after a breakthrough deal that returns Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to office.

Iraq’s prime minister Nouri al-Maliki will return to power for another four-year term after MPs working late into the night agreed on a deal to form a new government.

Former Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz was sentenced to death today for persecuting Shiite political parties during Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Iraq’s prime minister hailed the end of American combat operations today, saying it was an important step toward restoring Iraqi sovereignty.

As US vice president Joe Biden prepared to preside over the formal end to American combat operations in Iraq today few there were cheering the exit.