Yahoo! News: Iraq

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• Syrian army launches offensive near Lebanon border
• 20,000 march in Berlin to demand PKK ban lifted
• Six killed in Kabul ahead of US security pact debate
• Assad gaining ground in Syrian civil war
• Pakistan calls troops after violence kills 10, injures dozens
• Islamist rebels behead fellow fighter by mistake: monitors
• Turkey PM meets Iraqi Kurdish leader to shore up peace talks
• Syria activists say jihadis mistakenly behead ally
• Iraqi Kurdish president in Turkey to back PM's peace effort
• Four police killed in Iraq attacks
• In Indonesia, an Afghan refugee family’s uneasy odyssey
• Blast in Kabul ahead of assembly on future of U.S. troops
• Activists: Syrian jihadis mistakenly behead ally
• Anonymous Hacker Jeremy Hammond Sentenced to 10 Years in Federal Prison

Syrian army launches offensive near Lebanon border Posted: 16 Nov 2013 11:56 AM PST BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian troops clashed with rebels in a mountainous western region Saturday in what appeared to be an offensive to cut an opposition supply route from Lebanon, forcing hundreds to flee for safety across the border, activists and officials said.

20,000 march in Berlin to demand PKK ban lifted Posted: 16 Nov 2013 10:38 AM PST Some 20,000 people marched through central Berlin on Saturday to demand the German government lift its 20-year ban on the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), organisers said. Under a heavy police presence, the protest passed off peacefully with demonstrators marching under the banner: "Support the peace process, lift the ban on the PKK." Despite the ban on the PKK, in place in Germany since 1993, the organisation enjoys considerable support there, with an estimated 500,000 Kurds in the country -- the majority of Turkish origin. German authorities believe the PKK has around 11,500 active members.

Six killed in Kabul ahead of US security pact debate Posted: 16 Nov 2013 10:37 AM PST A Taliban suicide bomber detonated an explosives-packed car in Kabul on Saturday, killing at least six people near a compound where a controversial security pact between Afghanistan and the US will be debated, officials said. Another 22 were injured when the vehicle blew up about 150 metres (500 feet) from a giant tent which will on Thursday host a meeting of elders on the future of US troops in the country after a NATO coalition pulls out in 2014. "Inital information shows that unfortunately four civilians, one police and one soldier have been killed in today's attack," Afghan interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi told AFP. The Taliban claimed the attack later in the evening.

Assad gaining ground in Syrian civil war Posted: 16 Nov 2013 09:15 AM PST BEIRUT (AP) — Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad have firmly seized the momentum in the country's civil war in recent weeks, capturing one rebel stronghold after another and triumphantly planting the two-starred Syrian government flag amid shattered buildings and rubble-strewn streets.

Pakistan calls troops after violence kills 10, injures dozens Posted: 16 Nov 2013 09:06 AM PST Rawalpindi (Pakistan) (AFP) - Pakistan called in its army Saturday to quell sectarian unrest in three cities, after nine people were killed and nearly 90 wounded in violent attacks across the country, according to officials. Authorities imposed a curfew in the city of Rawalpindi, where sectarian clashes on Friday left nine people dead and more than 60 injured, and spawned retaliatory violence in at least two other cities. Fighting erupted in the garrison-city, which neighbours the capital Islamabad, when a procession by Shiite Muslims to mark the most important day of the mourning month of Muharram coincided with a sermon at a nearby Sunni mosque. "A curfew has been imposed in Rawalpindi city to avert further violence following the incidents on Friday," Waseem Ahmed, a police official told AFP.

Islamist rebels behead fellow fighter by mistake: monitors Posted: 16 Nov 2013 08:29 AM PST A group of Syrian Sunni Muslim rebels linked to al Qaeda have beheaded one of their own wounded fighters after mistaking him for a foreign Shi'ite fighting for President Bashar al-Assad, a monitoring group said on Saturday. A video posted by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights shows two members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) brandishing a severed head before a crowd in Aleppo and saying he was an Iraqi Shi'ite fighting for Assad. Observatory head Rami Abdelrahman said that the man was later identified by the Ahrar al-Sham group, which fights alongside ISIL, as Mohammed Marroush, one of its fighters. "(ISIL) admitted that they killed the rebel, and arrested a Tunisian man for cutting his head off," Abdelrahman said, adding that the Tunisian had been referred to an Islamic rebel court in Aleppo.

Turkey PM meets Iraqi Kurdish leader to shore up peace talks Posted: 16 Nov 2013 07:58 AM PST Diyarbakir (Turkey) (AFP) - Turkey's prime minister welcomed the leader of Iraq's autonomous north to his country's own Kurdish-dominated territory for the first time Saturday, in a visit designed to kickstart a stalled peace process. Tens of thousands of Kurds turned out to watch Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan greet Iraqi Kurdish leader Massud Barzani in the Kurdish heartland of Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey. Barzani has visited the capital of Ankara many times but Saturday's meeting was described by Erdogan as "historic" and a "crowning moment" in overcoming a three-decade conflict with the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Syria activists say jihadis mistakenly behead ally Posted: 16 Nov 2013 07:52 AM PST BEIRUT (AP) — Fighters from an al-Qaida-linked Syrian rebel group beheaded an allied commander whom they mistook for a pro-government fighter, activists said on Saturday.

Iraqi Kurdish president in Turkey to back PM's peace effort Posted: 16 Nov 2013 07:38 AM PST By Dasha Afanasieva and Gulsen Solaker DIYARBAKIR (Reuters) - The president of Iraqi Kurdistan called on Turkey's Kurds to back a flagging peace process with Ankara on Saturday, making his first visit to southeastern Turkey in two decades in a show of support for Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. Masoud Barzani's trip to Diyarbakir, the main city in Turkey's Kurdish-dominated southeast, comes as Ankara finalizes billions of dollars of energy deals with his semi-autonomous region and amid mutual concern over the ambitions of Kurdish militias in the chaos of neighboring Syria. Thousands gathered to hear Barzani and Erdogan speak, opening a day of ceremonies including a performance by Kurdish poet and singer Sivan Perwer, who had fled Turkey in the 1970s, and a wedding of 400 couples.

Four police killed in Iraq attacks Posted: 16 Nov 2013 07:03 AM PST A series of attacks in Baghdad and north Iraq left four policemen dead and a dozen people wounded on Saturday, in the latest in a months-long surge in nationwide bloodshed. The spike in violence, which has left more than 5,600 people dead so far this year, has forced Iraq to appeal for international help to combat militancy with just months to go before its first general election in four years. In Baghdad, two separate bombings targeting police patrols killed three policemen and wounded 11 other people, security and medical officials said. And in Mosul, militants opened fire on a police checkpoint, killing one policeman and wounding another.

In Indonesia, an Afghan refugee family’s uneasy odyssey Posted: 16 Nov 2013 06:00 AM PST "[Indonesian] immigration is saying we can't stay in Cisarua, so where to go now? Her family has been rejected for United Nations asylum, which would guarantee a permanent stay outside Afghanistan. Then they learned Australia is no longer taking people without visas as it did until last year. Now Indonesian authorities say refugees, particularly young men, are angering locals in Cisarua by making sexual advances on Indonesian women.

Blast in Kabul ahead of assembly on future of U.S. troops Posted: 16 Nov 2013 05:58 AM PST By Hamid Shalizi and Mirwais Harooni KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide bomber rammed his car into an Afghan army vehicle providing security for a compound where Afghanistan's political and tribal elites are due to gather next week to debate a security pact with the United States. Saturday's attack took place just hours after President Hamid Karzai called on the Taliban to take part in the Loya Jirga assembly that convenes on Thursday to decide whether to allow some U.S. troops to stay in Afghanistan after 2014. At least six people were killed and 22 wounded in the blast, said Sediq Sediqqi, an Interior Ministry spokesman.

Activists: Syrian jihadis mistakenly behead ally Posted: 16 Nov 2013 01:54 AM PST BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian activists say al-Qaida-linked jihadists have mistakenly beheaded a wounded fellow fighter.

Anonymous Hacker Jeremy Hammond Sentenced to 10 Years in Federal Prison Posted: 15 Nov 2013 06:17 PM PST Anonymous and LulzSec member Jeremy Hammond was sentenced to 10 years in jail today, his punishment for pleading guilty to one count of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Hammond, who went by "Anarchaos," was one of several LulzSec members turned in to the FBI by their own leader, Hector Xavier Monsegur (a.k.a "Sabu"). He was arrested March 2012 and plead guilty in May 2013 to hacking into the computers of a private intelligence firm called Stratfor.

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