IRAQ will not extend the June 30 deadline for US troops to withdraw from urban areas, a spokesman said yesterday despite concerns about a resurgence of violence in recent weeks.

About 12,000 US soldiers and 4,000 British soldiers will leave Iraq by September, it was announced, hours after a Baghdad suicide bomber killed about 30 people in a chilling reminder of the nation’s still-shaky security.

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 US raid into Syria may end up affecting more than just its own relations with the country.

American forces killed the head of a Syrian network that funnelled fighters, weapons and cash into Iraq during the cross-border helicopter raid, according to a US anti-terror chief.

IRAQ has demanded changes be made to a draft security pact with the United States after it failed to win the support of its political leaders despite months of painstaking negotiations with Washington.

The Iraqi government is planning to open a museum inside the notorious Abu Ghraib prison to document crimes committed there during Saddam Hussein’s regime.

King Abdullah II of Jordan plans to visit Iraq soon in the first trip by an Arab leader since Saddam Hussein was deposed in 2003, officials said today.

Shiite groups brokered a reported ceasefire today with militants fighting US and Iraqi forces in Baghdad’s Sadr City as the country’s army launched an offensive against al-Qaida’s main bastion in Iraq – the northern city of Mosul.

The Iraqi government has welcomed an order by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to pull his fighters off the streets.

The Iraqi government is refusing to execute Saddam Hussein’s henchman and cousin known as “Chemical Ali” unless the executions of two other associates are also approved.

Turkish F-16 jets buzzed over the small Turkish hilltop town of Cukurca today as elite commandos chased Kurdish guerrillas across the border in northern Iraq in a major ground operation.

Turkish forces pressed ahead with ground operations against Kurdish rebels in Iraq today after the military reported that five troops and several dozen rebels had been killed in the cross-border fighting.

Violence is down 55% in Iraq since the US troop build-up began this summer, but it is unclear what role Iran played in the downturn, US officials said today, tempering recent optimism about Tehran’s waning support for militants with warnings that more needs to be done.

The UN chief today appealed for dialogue to resolve fears of a Turkish offensive against Kurdish rebels based in Iraq, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki pledged to work with his country’s neighbours to fight terrorism.

Private American security guards should face trial over the shooting of 17 Iraqis, an official investigation has ruled.

IRAQ’S foreign minister urged neighbours to prevent “terrorists and killers” from crossing into his country and warned yesterday that the violence in Iraq could spill across its borders.

Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari today urged Iraq’s neighbours to prevent “terrorists and killers” from crossing into his country and warned that the violence in Iraq could spill across its borders into other nations.

US troops battled Iraqi police suspected of links to Iranian-backed Shiite militiamen today, killing six.

The Iraqi Cabinet signed off on a revised bill to share the country’s oil wealth today and sent it to parliament – a major step in reaching a long-delayed benchmark sought by the US to promote reconciliation between Iraq’s Sunnis and Shiites.

Iraqi’s parliament will begin will today debate a key oil law that the US is pressing Iraq to pass to boost reconciliation between the country’s Sunnis and Shiite communities.

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.

Iraqi prime minister Nouri Maliki fired the Basra police chief today over his force’s failure to stop weekend attacks on Sunni mosques.

Five US soldiers have died in Iraq, the US military announced today, a day after extremists fired shells into Baghdad’s Green Zone during a visit by the US State Department’s No. 2 official.

Russian president Vladimir Putin said today that a joint missile defence plan he proposed to the United States could include interceptor missiles hosted by US allies such as Turkey or even Iraq.

A suicide car bomber flattened a restaurant in a busy market in the Shiite holy city of Kufa this morning, killing at least 16 people and wounding 70 in an attack sure to further enflame tensions between Iraq’s Sunni and Shiite populations.

Iraqi officials have received reports that the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq has been killed north of Baghdad but the information has not been confirmed, the chief government spokesman said today.

Iraq’s government has criticised the US Senate vote to begin withdrawing US troops by October 1.

The UN Security Council today condemned the terrorist attack on Iraq’s parliament “in the strongest terms” and called for national dialogue and reconciliation to restore peace and security in the violence-wracked country.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has accepted the resignation of Justice Minister Hashim al-Shebli and named a temporary replacement.

Iraq’s foreign minister welcomed the release today of 15 British sailors and marines but said the decision was not the result of a deal to release five Iranians detained by the US in Iraq.

The US military today announced the deaths of seven more soldiers in Iraq, including four killed by a roadside bomb while they were patrolling western Baghdad, as casualties mount during a month-old security crackdown.

THE Iraqi government said yesterday that half the Sunni Muslim militants behind the bombings shaking the country had arrived through neighbouring Syria.

Iraq security forces have today captured a provincial leader of al-Qaida in Iraq during an operation north of Baghdad, which also left two of his followers dead.

A suicide car bomber struck a mostly Shiite neighbourhood today in central Baghdad, killing 26 people, hours after the prime minister promised the coming US-Iraq security sweep in the capital would pursue militants wherever they were hiding.

The official video of hanging of Saddam Hussein's co-defendants screened for reporters today shows the former leader's half brother lying headless below gallows, his severed head several yards away.

The half-brother of Saddam Hussein and the former head of Iraq’s Revolutionary Court were hanged before dawn today, two weeks and two days after the former dictator was executed in a disturbing scene that drew worldwide criticism.

US and Iraqi soldiers, backed by American warplanes, killed 50 suspected insurgents in an battle today in central Baghdad, the Iraqi defense ministry said.

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.

After nearly a quarter-century of severed ties, Iraq said it would resume diplomatic relations with neighbouring Syria – a move seen as a possible step toward stemming some of the unrelenting violence, which claimed another 100 lives.

Two bombs went off within minutes of each other today in northern Baghdad, killing at least nine people and wounding 39.

British foreign secretary Margaret Beckett today said that transferring control of Iraq’s security from the US-led coalition to the government was essential.

Iraqi forces will take over security control of a southern province from coalition troops next month, state-run television quoted the prime minister as saying today.