Three U.S. soldiers killed in Diyala (Mar. 11)

Five U.S. soldiers killed in Baghdad (Mar. 10)

Mass grave found containing 100 bodies (Mar. 10)

National crisis for Iraqi women (Mar. 6)

Iraq drops death squad charges against senior officials (Mar. 4)

Violent deaths jump 30% in February

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The Swiss-based agency says Iraq's humanitarian situation is "among the most critical in the world". ...

Healthcare in Iraq was "now in worse shape than ever" and the services that are available are too expensive for many people, the report said. ...

The report also says that tens of thousands of Iraqis had effectively disappeared since the start of the war. ...

Tens of thousands of Iraqis - nearly all men - are in detention, according to the agency, including 20,000 inmates at Camp Bucca near Basra, which is run by US-led multinational forces.

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Obama said something different:

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Obama Takes It to McCain on Iraq War

So when I am Commander-in-Chief, I will set a new goal on Day One: I will end this war. Not because politics compels it. Not because our troops cannot bear the burden– as heavy as it is. But because it is the right thing to do for our national security, and it will ultimately make us safer.

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Police in Belgium have detained about 150 demonstrators as they tried to climb security fences outside Nato headquarters in Brussels. ...

Water cannon was used to dislodge those who tried to get over the fences, some using mats to cover the barbed wires. ...

Organisers Bombspotting and Vredesactie (Action for Peace) said about 500 protesters took part in Saturday's demonstration in the suburb of Evere to mark the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war.

They claimed Nato was the tool of US policy in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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In the bloodiest single incident, 13 Iraqi soldiers died when a suicide attacker drove a fuel tanker into an army base in Mosul in northern Iraq.

The US military said it killed 12 militants preparing suicide attacks in a house east of Baquba.

At least 15 people died in rocket and mortar fire apparently aimed at Baghdad's Green Zone.

Eight were civilians who were killed when rockets landed short of their targets on Sunday morning.

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U.S. charges man "on Saddam's pay"

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A US man who organised a trip by three US lawmakers to Iraq in the run-up to the war has been charged with working for the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Muthanna al-Hanooti, who worked for an Islamic charity, was arrested on Tuesday when he entered the US from abroad, officials said.

Prosecutors say Iraqi intelligence officials paid for the lawmakers' trip.

The congressmen travelled to Iraq in October 2002 and expressed concern at US preparations for war. ...

At the end of their stay in Iraq, the lawmakers pressed both the Iraqi and the US administrations to allow the return of the United Nations weapons inspectors.

"There is a way to solve this crisis without war," said Mr Thompson at the time.

"It is for the Iraqis not to interfere and for the United States not to interfere in the inspections process."

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Iraq’s Prime Minister was staring into the abyss today after his operation to crush militia strongholds in Basra stalled, members of his own security forces defected and district after district of his own capital fell to Shia militia gunmen.

With the threat of a civil war looming in the south, Nouri al-Maliki’s police chief in Basra narrowly escaped assassination in the crucial port city, while in Baghdad, the spokesman for the Iraqi side of the US military surge was kidnapped by gunmen and his house burnt to the ground.

Saboteurs also blew up one of Iraq's two main oil pipelines from Basra, cutting at least a third of the exports from the city which provides 80 per cent of government revenue, a clear sign that the militias — who siphon significant sums off the oil smuggling trade — would not stop at mere insurrection.

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US President George W Bush has praised Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki's "bold decision" in ordering Iraqi forces to crack down on Shia militias in the city of Basra.

Heavy fighting continued in the city for a third day between militias and security forces, with violence in other parts of southern Iraq and Baghdad.

The clashes have claimed more than 130 lives since Tuesday.

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U.S. warplanes launched air strikes into at least two Shia neighbourhoods in Baghdad on Friday, as well as firing missiles into the southern city of Basra in support of Iraqi government forces locked in fierce fighting with Shia militias.

The U.S. military said a helicopter missile strike in Baghdad's northeast Sadr City neighbourhood killed four militants, although Iraqi officials said the dead were civilians.

Meanwhile, rockets and mortar shells fired from Sadr City continued to stream into the U.S.-controlled Green Zone on Friday. CNN reported one mortar struck the office of one of Iraq's vice-presidents, killing two guards. ...

Earlier Friday, a British official reported that U.S. warplanes carried out at least two air strikes overnight in Basra, the first time they've done so since clashes between Shia militias and Iraqi security forces erupted earlier this week.

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Earlier Friday, a British official reported that U.S. warplanes carried out at least two air strikes overnight in Basra, the first time they've done so since clashes between Shia militias and Iraqi security forces erupted earlier this week.

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US forces said four militants were killed, but Iraqi security sources have given casualty estimates ranging from 11 to up to 60 dead.

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Iraqi militia defy call to disarm

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The radical Shia Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr has defied a call by the Iraqi government for his powerful Mehdi Army militia to lay down its weapons. ...

Fighting has claimed at least 200 lives across Iraq since Tuesday....

At least seven people were killed in one reported air strike in Basra overnight, according to relatives. Iraqi sources said the dead were all civilians but there was no confirmation from the US. ...

US aircraft on Friday bombed Baghdad's Sadr City area, scene of some of the heaviest violence.

Reports say there has also been fresh fighting in the cities of Karbala, Hilla and Nasiriya, all with large Shia communities.

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki on Friday gave the Mehdi Army, which controls large parts of Basra, 10 days to lay down their arms in return for cash.

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Like all disgusting puppets, this Maliki scumbag thinks that everyone is motivated by the same goals as he is - U.S. dollars stuffed up his ass. He should focus on escape routes before it's too late:

I'm outta here!!!!!!!

[ 29 March 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]

Truthfully, in my perception, that we are not makes us complict in the slaughter of innocent Iraqis.

We have an illegal invasion and occupation of a country.

A destroyed country even prior to this latest assault against them. It will take decades for them to recover, at best, and who knows what all those depleted uranium shells will mean.

Now we have a locked in population from 6pm, who are being bombed in the very places they are told to stay in, under threat of being shot if they do not.

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British forces have become directly involved in the fighting in Basra, as clashes continue between the Iraqi army and militiamen of the Mehdi Army.

British troops launched artillery shells at a mortar position in the al-Klalaf area of northern Basra, which had been firing on Iraqi troops. ...

"I think we need to be prepared for this to run for a while", [U.K. Major Tom Holloway] said.

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Indeed, it's only been 5 years since the murderers invaded, and the grateful liberated population still haven't found time to get the floral garlands ready to welcome them.

He's hoping this will "run for a while", but my prediction is that he and his U.S. masters will be running in a while.

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It's a relatively straightforward story: Iraq is ablaze today as a result of an attempt to impose Colombian-style democracy on the unstable country: Maliki's goal, shared by the like-minded allies among the Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities that dominate his administration, and with at least tacit U.S. approval, is to kill off the opposition and then hold a vote.

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The Marine Corps yesterday dismissed all charges against one of the Marines accused of killing women and children in the Iraqi town of Haditha in late 2005, the third time a Marine linked to the slayings has been exonerated after one of the most notorious episodes of the war.

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Shiite militiamen in Basra openly controlled wide swaths of the city on Saturday and staged increasingly bold raids on Iraqi government forces sent five days ago to wrest control from the gunmen, witnesses said, as Iraqi political leaders grew increasingly critical of the stalled assault.

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U.S. forces clash with militia in Baghdad

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Twenty people were killed in clashes in Baghdad between members of the Mehdi Army militia group and US and Iraqi forces, Iraqi medical workers say.

Iraqi officials said women and children were among the dead and more than 50 wounded in the Sadr City district. The US says nine "criminals" were killed.

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[ 06 April 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]

OUCH!!

U.S. soldiers killed in Green Zone

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Three US service personnel have been killed and 31 wounded by rocket attacks on the Green Zone and a base elsewhere in Baghdad, the US military has said.

The rocket attack at 1530 (1230 GMT) on the Green Zone, which houses government offices and foreign embassies, killed two personnel and wounded at least 17.

A separate attack at the same time on a forward operating base in the Rustamiya district killed one and injured 14.

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An Iraqi soldier was killed when two US helicopters collided while landing at a base in northern Baghdad, the American military says.

A military spokesman said two American troops and two other Iraqi soldiers were wounded when the Black Hawks crashed on Saturday evening.

He said the crash did not appear to have been caused by hostile fire.

But Baghdad police said a US helicopter was downed by gunfire and there was fighting in the area after it crashed.

The police said the fighting was between local militias and American and Iraqi forces.

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While they have their backs turned, fighting wars in Asia and the Middle East, it seems that US troops have allowed a counter-invasion of their country by marauding legions.

An infestation of the Turkistan cockroach, which can carry diseases such as typhoid and dysentery, can be blamed on a handful of the insects hitching a ride with soldiers returning from the war zone, experts say. Now the fast-breeding cockroaches, which are adept at dodging pesticides, have spread from California to New Mexico, threatening mayhem further afield as they seek new territory.

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