Iraq’s president snubbed incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and picked another politician to form the next government yesterday, setting up a fierce political power struggle even as the country battles extremists in the north and west.

Sunni militants have blitzed through the vast desert of western Iraq, capturing four towns and three border crossings and deepening the predicament of the Shiite-led government in Baghdad led by Nouri Maliki.

Sunni fighters led by an al-Qaeda breakaway group expanded their offensive in a volatile western province, capturing three strategic towns and the first border crossing with Syria to fall on the Iraqi side.

President Barack Obama said he was sending up to 300 US military advisers to Iraq but stressed the need for a political solution to the country’s crisis, as government forces battled Sunni rebels for control of the country’s biggest refinery.

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.

The right of people to choose their own governments is running into trouble. The unrest sweeping many nations shows democracy being overwhelmed by despotism and despair, writes Nicholas Wapshott

Washington cannot sit back and allow Iraq to be overrun by a terrorist group that is capable of and willing to launch attacks on the US, writes Anja Manuel.

Barack Obama threatened US military strikes in Iraq yesterday against Sunni Islamist militants who have surged out of the north to menace Baghdad and want to establish their own state in Iraq and Syria.

Rumours about the shooting of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, sparked by Arab and Israeli media reports on Saturday, remain unconfirmed.

Iraq’s embattled prime minister has fought off an attempt to push him out of office, aided by divisions among his opponents and Iranian intervention on his behalf.

Four explosions struck Shiite neighbourhoods in Iraq’s capital Baghdad today, killing 13 people and injuring dozens.

A SERIES of bombings hit Baghdad, killing at least 69 people in the first big assault on Iraq’s capital since a sectarian crisis erupted within its government days after the US troop withdrawal.

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

A wave of bombings in Baghdad killed at least 57 people and injured 200 more today.

Twenty-one people were killed and nearly 100 others injured today when five bombs struck Shiite pilgrims during an important religious ritual for the Muslim sect.

Iraq’s prime minister says a bombing in the Green Zone earlier this week was an assassination attempt against him.

Iraqi state TV is reporting that prime minister Nouri Maliki will not run for a third time when his current term is up in 2014.

IRAQ’S parliament approved Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his new government yesterday, nine months after an inconclusive election left politics in limbo and delayed investments to rebuild the country after years of war.

Iraqi MPs approved an agreement that aims to bring all of Iraq's feuding political blocs into a new government led by Shiite prime minister Nouri Maliki.

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.

Iraq’s prime minister is accusing WikiLeaks of releasing documents that detail prisoner abuse by Iraqi security forces to sabotage his re-election hopes.

Suicide bombers struck at a Baghdad military headquarters today killing 12 people.

Militants detonated a car bomb at a Baghdad military headquarters today and then tried to shoot their way into the building, killing eight people and wounding 29 in a brazen morning attack, Iraqi officials said.

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.

Suspected al-Qaida militants killed five Iraqi soldiers today in a brazen dawn attack at a western Baghdad checkpoint and planted the terror group's black banner before fleeing the scene, officials said.

US vice president Joe Biden landed today in Baghdad on what appeared to be a dual mission: to visit US troops during the Fourth of July weekend and coax Iraqi leaders into ending their government impasse.

Weeping and wailing Shiites today buried the last of dozens of bombing victims killed while praying, and their leaders called for a three-day mourning period after the deadliest day in Iraq this year.

The vote winner in Iraq’s parliamentary elections said today he wanted to negotiate with all parties to form a government that can restore Iraq’s place in the Arab and Muslim world.

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

Iraqis voted today in an election testing the mettle of the country’s still-fragile democracy as insurgents killed 25 people across the Iraq, unleashing a barrage of mortars intent on disrupting the historic day.

Iraqis voted today in an election testing the mettle of the country’s still-fragile democracy as insurgents killed eight people across the capital with a barrage of mortars intent on disrupting the day.

Iraq’s top security chiefs faced MPs behind closed doors today to answer for security lapses that allowed a third attack since the summer against government sites in the Iraqi capital.

Al-Qaida’s umbrella group in Iraq has claimed responsibility for twin suicide bombings in the heart of Baghdad that killed at least 155 people, including 24 children trapped in a bus.

Two powerful suicide car bombs blew up outside the Justice Ministry and city government offices in central Baghdad today, killing at least 136 people in the worst attack in more than two years.

A SERIES of blasts in Baghdad yesterday killed 95 people and wounded 536 in Iraq’s bloodiest day this year, renewing doubt over Iraqi forces’ ability to maintain security after US troops pulled out of urban areas.

Barack Obama said he pressed Iraq's prime minister to make room in his government and security forces for all ethnic and religious groups to prevent a resurgence of the violence and turmoil that took the country to the verge of civil war.

IRAQ regained full control if its towns and cities yesterday as US troops pulled back, six years after the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

Iraqi forces today arrested an al Qaida-linked member of a Sunni paramilitary group who was believed to be a mastermind of the assassination of a prominent Sunni politician in Baghdad, officials said.

US President Barack Obama tonight moved to fulfil the defining promise of his campaign, saying all US combat troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of August next year.

ALLIES of Iraq’s US-backed prime minister appeared yesterday to have made gains in the provincial elections, rewarding groups credited with reining in insurgents and militias, according to unofficial projections.

Iraqis passed through security checkpoints and razor-wire cordons to vote today in provincial elections that are considered a crucial test of the nation’s stability as US officials consider the pace of troop withdrawals.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown today hailed the British military’s involvement in Iraq a “success story”.

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.

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.