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In the safe haven of Iraqi Kurdistan, the Jews and Israel are remembered fondly,if increasingly vaguely. "THEY CALL That lack of restraint?" the former Iraqi army officer exclaimed, while watching the BBC’s coverage of the Al-Aqsa Intifada on satellite TV last winter. "If this demonstration were held in Baghdad, there’d be 10,000 bodies in the street," said the Arab from Baghdad who now teaches in Iraqi Kurdistan. Almost 4 million people live in the safe haven of northern Iraq. A de facto autonomous region, it has been administered by the Kurds since 1991 when Saddam Hussein withdrew his administration in ...

Mideast: Our premature departure from Iraq tells the world that the U.S., as in Vietnam, can't finish big jobs. But far worse, it opens the door to a nuclear-armed, pan-Islamist empire led by Iran. Why, as Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin reported Thursday, did Iraqi leaders opt out of the official end-of-war ceremony in Baghdad? Well over 4,000 U.S. servicemen and women gave their lives to free Iraq from Saddam Hussein, and some 32,000 were wounded over nearly a decade of war. Shouldn't the elected representatives of the Iraqi people have been there to express their personal thanks? After all,...

The local Kurdish media is reporting that four former spies were re-elected to the leadership of the Jalal Talabani’s PUK. Various Kurdish media sources are reporting this story, which has shaken the PUK grassroots organisation and Kurdish society, prompting outrage and statements that both spies and patriots are working together to lead the PUK. According to local reports, Saadi Ahmad Pira, Aso Almani, Mustafa Chawrash and Shalaw Ali Askari were discovered to be working for the former Iraqi regime while acting as high ranking officials within the PUK. Dismay and anger has been the response of many Kurds upon hearing...

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani traveled to New York this week for the opening of the 61st session of the United Nations General Assembly. In a letter to the people of the United States, Talabani describes Iraq’s security situation, challenges and progress, and his country’s special relationship with the U.S. “Dear Americans, As I am visiting the United States for the second time representing free and democratic Iraq, I felt it my duty to give you an update on what has been achieved in Iraq over the past year and on the challenges that lie ahead. The first thing I would...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - President Jalal Talabani on Saturday underscored the need for a unity government in Iraq after a spasm of sectarian killing and said he had been assured U.S. forces would remain in the country as long as needed - ``no matter what the period.'' His comments came after a bomb exploded at a minibus terminal during morning rush hour in a southeastern Baghdad suburb, killing seven people and wounding 25, one of a string of explosions in the capital and elsewhere. The violence shattered the relative calm brought by Fridays' driving ban in Baghdad and its outskirts,...

<p>BASRA, Iraq (AP) - Ali Hassan al-Majid, dubbed ``Chemical Ali'' by opponents of the Iraqi regime for ordering a poison gas attack that killed thousands of Kurds, has been found dead, a British officer said Monday.</p> <p>Maj. Andrew Jackson of the 3rd Battalion Parachute Regiment told The Associated Press that his superiors had confirmed the death of the man who is also President Saddam Hussein's first cousin.</p> <p>Jackson said the body was found along with that of his bodyguard and the head of Iraqi intelligence services in Basra.</p>

Saddam's nephew finds sanctuary in Syria By Con Coughlin in Baghdad (Filed: 18/05/2003) A leading member of Saddam Hussein's family has been discovered living in Damascus under the protection of the Syrian government after fleeing Iraq last week, The Telegraph can reveal. Fatiq al-Majid, one of Saddam's nephews, entered Syria last Monday after leaving Iraq at the al-Rabie'a checkpoint, which is under the control of American troops. Majid was given a Syrian visa and made his way to Damascus, where he is now living in exile. Majid confirmed his presence in Damascus when contacted by telephone by The Telegraph last...

BAGHDAD--There is no more important international issue today than the need to defeat the curse of terrorism. And as the first democratically elected president of Iraq, I have a responsibility to ensure that the world's youngest democracy survives the inherently difficult transition from totalitarianism to pluralism. A transformation of the Iraqi state and Iraqi society is impossible without a sustained commitment of soldiers from the United States and other democracies.

Talabani won't sign Saddam death sentence Sun Aug 28, 2:56 PM ET AFP/IST-HO/File Photo: Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said in remarks that he would not sign a death sentence against his ousted predecessor Saddam Hussein even if it costs him his job. "Once his (Saddam's) interrogation is over, he will go before a tribunal," Talabani told Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news channel in an interview. Should a death sentence be issued against the former dictator, "I will not sign it," he said. "I am a man of principles. I cannot forego my principles for the sake of my post. If there is...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's Kurdish president backed his Shiite allies Wednesday by openly supporting a militia that Sunni Arab leaders have accused of killing members of their minority. Clashes in Baghdad and other attacks around Iraq killed at least eight people as the Sunni-dominated insurgency pressed on with its campaign against the Shiite-led government. The bloody wave of violence that broke out after the April 28 announcement of Iraq's new Shiite and Kurdish dominated government has killed more than 874 people. During the spree, more than 10 Sunni and Shiite clerics have been killed in apparent tit-for-tat slayings that raised...

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq's most powerful Shiite bloc wants Saddam Hussein put to death if he is convicted of war crimes by a special tribunal, and the interim president should resign if he refuses to sign the execution order, an alliance spokesman told The Associated Press on Monday. Ali al-Dabagh, a lawmaker from the clergy-led United Iraq Alliance, which received the most votes in Jan. 30 national elections, said everyone in his party believes Saddam should be sentenced to death if convicted of war crimes against Iraqis. "We feel he is a criminal. He is the No. 1 criminal in...

Iraq's new president Jalal Talabani restated his support for a continued US military presence in Iraq, one day after large demonstrations by supporters of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr demanded US troops leave the country. "I think we are in great need to have American and other allied forces in Iraq until we will be able to rebuild our military forces," Talabani told the CNN news program Late Edition. Branding Sadr a "criminal" who should be arrested, Talabani said he opposed setting a timetable for the US military's exit from the country. On Saturday, tens of thousands of Sadr's followers marched...

Saddam Hussein watched the televised election of Iraq's new president from his jail cell yesterday and was "clearly upset", a senior official said. Jalal Talabani, a former Kurdish guerrilla commander and sworn enemy of Saddam, was elected to the highest office in a parliamentary ballot, bringing a new government a step closer. Under Saddam the only way Mr Talabani would have left his northern redoubt was in chains or a coffin, but yesterday he arrived in Baghdad in a blaze of triumph. Adel Abdul-Mahdi, a Shia who is finance minister in the outgoing government, and Ghazi al-Yawer, a Sunni Arab...

ROME (AFP) - Two young Italian women kidnapped in Iraq last week have been taken by their captors to the flashpoint city of Fallujah, according to an Italian newspaper that quoted non-Italian intelligence services. The Corriere della Sera said aid workers Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, who were taken at gunpoint from their Baghdad offices along with two Iraqi colleagues on September 7, "may have been taken to the Sunni Muslim stronghold of Fallujah, which is inaccessible to coalition forces." "The report, passed on by the intelligence service of a foreign country, is apparently backed up by information picked up...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A car bomb exploded Tuesday in central Baghdad outside the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, killing three people and injuring 20, the military said. A roadside bomb also exploded near the U.S. military base in Beiji in northern Iraq, killing 11 Iraqis — including seven members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps — and wounding 23 others. Two U.S. 1st Infantry Division Soldiers were wounded and evacuated to a combat hospital, together with 16 Iraqis who were hurt. The Baghdad blast ripped through the building in the early afternoon, shortly after a party attended by...

SADDAM HUSSEIN CAPTURED Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been captured in his home town of Tikrit, according to reports. There has been no independent verification of the news but Sky New's Foreign Editor Tim Marshall says the source of the news is usually reliable. The US Defence Department says it has had no confirmation of the claims, which come from Iraqi Kurd leader Jalal Talabani, says the Iran news agency IRNA. Hundreds of exultant people have taken to the streets of Kirkuk, firing weapons into the air in celebration. A press conference has been announced for 12pm GMT. In...

<p>BAGHDAD -- It has been my privilege to preside over the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) during a month of momentous events. We now have an agreement for the transfer of authority between the Coalition, the liberators, and the IGC, the representatives of the liberated Iraqis. President Bush has outlined an inspiring vision for a free and democratic Middle East. Our American friends are resolutely striking back at the vicious remnants of Saddam's regime and damaging the network of Baathists and foreign Islamists attempting to destroy the Iraqi experiment in democracy. Yet these gains could easily be forfeited if we Iraqis do not bear the brunt of the fighting.</p>

THE last newspaper to roll off the presses at al-Iraq printworks in Baghdad carried a picture of Saddam Hussein clutching a rifle and urging citizens to take up arms against the American tanks rolling into the city. The newspaper that goes on sale today bears a very different image: the smiling face of Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish leader and Saddam’s arch-enemy, crowing over the number of former regime leaders being rounded up by the Americans. Two weeks ago, this plant produced four of Iraq’s official state newspapers, from the sycophantic al-Jamhouria, documenting every minor official presidential visit and rendezvous, to...