Iraq's leaders have told a panel of seven judges to issue a final ruling on 500 candidates who seek to run in next month's general elections.

An Iraqi militant group says they kidnapped a US citizen because the Iraqi government reneged on its promise to obtain the release of members of the group held in US-run prisons and arrested more of its members.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki vows not to allow the US to meddle in decision-making about the ban on election candidates with suspected links to the Saddam era's Baath Party.

At least 42 people have been killed and 150 others wounded after a bomb went off in the Iraqi holy city of Karbala amid tight security for a huge religious procession.

The Iraqi government has said an appeals panel's decision to allow suspected Baath party members to run in March elections is "illegal."

An Iraqi appeal court has temporarily lifted a ban on the participation in elections of a group of candidates with suspected ties to former Saddam Hussein's Baath party, allowing them to run for the country's upcoming vote.

A bomb blast has left at least 20 people killed and about 120 others wounded in Karbala as violence builds against Shia pilgrims en route to the holy city for a major religious rite.

The United Nations refugee agency closes a makeshift camp on the Iraqi-Syrian border, relocating the last of the Palestinians that had been stranded there for nearly four years.

The US president and vice-president host Iraq's Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi amid a row over excluding Baath-linked candidates from Iraq's next elections.

Forty one Shia pilgrims have been killed and 106 others wounded in the Iraqi capital city of Baghdad as they were on their way by foot to the holy city of Karbala in central Iraq.

Iraq's Ministry for Human Rights will file a lawsuit against Britain and the US over their use of depleted uranium bombs in Iraq, an Iraqi minister says.

At least two people have died and 20 others have sustained injuries in an explosion, which took place in the central Iraqi city of Samarra.

Unidentified armed men have opened fire on a cleric outside a mosque in a Sunni neighborhood of Baghdad, killing him on the spot.

A senior Iraqi official has warned that Washington supports the return of former Baath party members to power in a bid to bolster security arrangements with Israel.

An Iranian woman has been killed and five others have been wounded in a drive-by shooting targeting buses carrying Iranian pilgrims in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

Iraq is seized by a sudden spike in violence as an explosion hits central Baghdad, killing at least 17 people and leaving almost 80 others wounded.

Iraqi Kurds have expressed joy over the execution of 'Chemical Ali' — a key player in the Baath regime's war machine, which killed thousands of Kurds.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has defended the country's decision to join the 2003 Iraq invasion, but lamented big lapses in post-war construction planning.

Saddam Hussein's notorious first cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid al-Tikritieh, also known as 'Chemical Ali,' was executed on Monday in Baghdad for crimes against humanity.

Three bomb explosions in quick succession have rocked central Baghdad on Monday, killing at least 37 people and injuring 100 others.

The US State Department has reportedly failed to properly manage and oversee a two-billion-dollar contract with a private company to train Iraqi police as the war-torn nation inches its way toward reconstruction.

Three bomb blasts in Iraq have killed at least eight people and injured four others as the country gears up for parliamentary elections scheduled for March.

The Iraqi government has ordered a commission formed to investigate about a defective bomb-detection device that Baghdad bought from a British firm.

An Iraqi parliamentarian warns of alleged US plans to surrender the country to extremists, urging resistance on the part of Baghdad.

A report suggests that Baath, the outlawed party of the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, is to launch a coup in the lead-up to the country's elections.

Iraq's senior Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr has urged US occupying forces in Iraq to leave the country as soon as possible.

Houthi fighters say that they have managed to repulse an attack which was launched by the Saudi Arabian army into northern Yemen.

US Vice President Joe Biden has arrived in the Iraqi capital Baghdad to meet with Iraqi leaders before the country's elections.

The Iraqi president has asked the country's Supreme Court to settle a political dispute over disqualification of scores of candidates from the March elections.

Iraqi security forces have arrested three senior military commanders with links to the terrorist al-Qaeda network in the eastern province of Wasit.

A car bomb has targeted an Iraqi army base in the restive city of Mosul, leaving at least 20 security forces and 10 civilians wounded.

An Iraqi parliamentary official said Tuesday that all 511 candidates banned from the upcoming general election had links to Saddam Hussein's political and military infrastructure.

Iraq is considering lodging a complaint against the US Blackwater/Xe security firm after a judge dismissed charges that the firm's guards killed Iraqi civilians in an act of wanton aggression.

At least five Iraqi civilians have died in Baghdad when unidentified assailants opened fire on them at a non-government organization engaged in humanitarian assistance activities.

Gunmen on Monday stormed a building in a busy district of Baghdad, killing at least four people, say officials from interior and defense ministries.

A senior Iraqi official says an important powerbroker in Saddam Hussein's defunct Baath party, Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as 'Chemical Ali' for his role in gas attacks on the Kurds, will be hanged within days.

An Iraqi court has sentenced Saddam Hussein's cousin, widely known as 'Chemical Ali,' to death on genocide charges for the fourth time.

The first post-Saddam Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, claims to be on his way to unseat the current Premier Nouri al-Maliki, contesting the upcoming elections on the frontline of a new parliamentary squad.

The United States is to deploy 21,000 US troops in and around the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq despite the security agreement between Baghdad and Washington.

At least 15 people have been killed and 80 others injured in a series of bomb blasts in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf.

Iraqi security forces have discovered a large cache of explosives in Baghdad as they locked down parts of the city in what appeared to be a wide-ranging operation across the capital.

Iraqi security forces have reportedly arrested two senior military commanders with "links to the terrorist al-Qaeda network" in the provinces of Karbala and Kirkuk.

An Iraqi court has handed death sentences to 11 men charged with involvement in Baghdad's August 19 bombings that killed more than 100 people.

A fresh bombing attack in Iraq has targeted law enforcement officers near a police station in the western province of al-Anbar, killing at least seven people.

Iraqi security forces have declared a state of curfew across major neighborhoods of Baghdad amid reports of probable bombing attacks there.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has called on the Parliament to lift the cloak of immunity shrouding chairperson of the Sunni Arab Iraqi Accordance Front.

The Iraqi government has integrated over 40,000 Sahwa militiamen into the civil services, 30,000 of them directly into ministries.

People across Iraq have taken to streets to protest a Saudi cleric's comments regarding the country's most influential cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

In line with a new tough approach, Iraqi security forces have seized huge storages of weaponry belonging to the foreign security contractors whose mandates had expired.

Iraq on Thursday banned a number of politicians and parties from running in the parliamentary elections scheduled for March, citing suspected links with the outlawed Baath party.

Early morning bombings Thursday rocked the town of Heet in the western Iraqi province of al-Anbar, killing seven people including an anti-terror chief, an emergency official said.

Baghdad has called on Riyadh to prevent insult to Iraq's Shia clergy as protests escalate over offensive remarks hurled by a Wahhabi imam against Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Iraqi officials are reportedly considering ways to force Israel to pay reparations for launching air strikes on the country's nuclear reactor near Baghdad.

Insulting remarks by a Saudi cleric about the most revered Shia cleric in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, have strained relations between Baghdad and Riyadh.

Iraq said Tuesday it will seek justice against Blackwater on behalf of the families of those who were killed at Baghdad shooting in 2007.

At least fifteen people have obtained injuries in two separate bombing attacks across Iraq's third largest city, Mosul.

Iraq has filed a lawsuit against Blackwater (now known as XE Services LLC) guards in the United States after they were acquitted on charges of killing 17 Iraqi civilians at a Baghdad traffic circle in 2007.

Three policemen have been killed and eight people wounded by two explosions in Iraq's northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk, police say.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has called for an end to a bitter row over oil contracts brokered by Iraqi Kurdistan.

Iraq said Sunday it will support a lawsuit against Blackwater guards in a US court after they were acquitted on charges of killing 17 Iraqi civilians at a Baghdad traffic circle in 2007.