15 dead in Iraq car bomb A car bomb in northern Iraq killed at least 15 people including children today in a sign that militants retain the ability to cause mass casualties despite a sharp improvement in security. In the south, US-led forces handed control of a province to the Iraqi government.
Ninety people were injured in the blast near a popular market in Tal Afar, said a police official who requested anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the media. Seven of the dead were children....
Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, is another trouble spot.
Yesterday two suicide bombers killed 28 people in a crowd of army recruits outside a military base there. Iraq has said it will soon launch an offensive in Diyala against militants who are trying to regroup, and US commanders say they will assist.
Some insurgents are believed to have holed up in the northern city of Mosul after being driven out of other urban strongholds, and relatively small-scale attacks happen there almost daily.
Today a car bomb exploded there killing two people and injuring nine, police said.
About an hour earlier on the same side of the city a suicide bomber blew up a car near a US military patrol and six civilians were injured, a police official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the media.
A female suicide bomber blew herself up yesterday inside the Baghdad house of a municipal leader who was planning to establish a US-allied Sunni group in the area, an official connected with the group said.
Three men died and seven others were injured, said the official, who did not want to be named for security reasons. Saad Awad, a municipal leader in the Abu Ghraib district, escaped unharmed but his father was among those killed.
AP 15 dead in Iraq car bomb - World - smh.com.au Iraq says hope slim for security deal with current U.S. gov't
BAGHDAD, July 14 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi government spokesman gave a dim outlook Monday of reaching a security agreement with the current U.S. administration.
"There is a large possibility of postponing the signing of the long-term agreement between Iraq and the U.S., until a new U.S. administration is elected," Ali al-Dabbagh was quoted as saying by the Voice of Iraq news agency.
Their disputes include a timetable for the pullout of foreign troops and how the U.S. forces would operate in Iraq, Dabbagh said, adding that both sides were trying to achieve the maximum gains.
The negotiations for a long-term bilateral agreement started March, aimed at framing a sweeping arrangement for future mutual relations, including the security issue, after the UN mandate on Iraq expires at the end of this year. Yet, they are locked in differences over the status of the U.S. force in Iraq in the coming years.
Iraq says hope slim for security deal with current U.S. gov't_English_Xinhua US Troop levels are likely to come down in the coming months. An interesting time coming up- will a fragile truce remain, or will conflict break out again? I don't know the answer. Some news is not so good- Fallujah's flames rekindled
By Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail
FALLUJAH - Security has collapsed again in Fallujah, despite United States military claims.
Local militias supported by US forces claim to have "cleansed" the city, 70 kilometers to the west of Baghdad, of all insurgency. But the sudden resignation of the city's chief of police, Colonel Fayssal al-Zoba'i, has appeared as one recent sign of growing unrest.
Authorities may have controlled the media better than the violence.
"Assassinations never stopped in Fallujah, but the media seem unwilling to cover the actual situation here," a human-rights activist in Fallujah, speaking on terms of anonymity given the tense situation, told Inter Press Service (IPS). "The
two bomb blasts that killed six policemen earlier this month and another two that killed three on the weekend seem to have terminated the silence." Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs Some more encouraging- Al Qaida bailing: Out of Iraq, into Africa
BAGHDAD — The Al Qaida network in Iraq, battered in the U.S.-led coalition offensive, has been sending scores of operatives to Africa.
Iraqi security sources said the Al Qaida network in Iraq has ordered hundreds of foreign operatives to leave the country. The sources said scores of Al Qaida fighters left Iraq for northern and eastern Africa during 2008.
"Many of them have escaped through the borders with Syria and Iran to hotter zones such as Somalia and Sudan," Iraqi Maj. Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal said.
World Tribune — Al Qaida bailing: Out of Iraq, into Africa
It's wait and see time.
