Yahoo! News: Iraq

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• Obama nominee for defense likely to get confirmed: top Republican
• Top 100 arms makers' arms sales fall in 2011: study
• Series of bombings in Baghdad area kill dozens
• US lawmakers meet with Iranian exiles in Paris
• Iranian dissident group is viable opposition: U.S. congressmen
• Lawmakers chide Obama for not protecting Iranian dissidents
• Lindsay Graham and Hagel Make Nice (For Now)
• Rise of Islamists frays strategic UAE-Egyptian relations
• Bahrain says arrests eight on "terror-related" charges
• Analysis: Rise of Islamists frays strategic UAE-Egyptian relations
• Bomb disables Iraq fuel oil pipeline
• Blasts hit Shi'ite districts in Baghdad, killing 26
• Iraqi officials say 28 killed in series of blasts
• Iraqi officials say 23 killed in series of blasts
• Bomb kills 64 in Pakistan's Quetta
• Bahrain: Alleged terror cell tied to Iran, allies

Obama nominee for defense likely to get confirmed: top Republican Posted: 17 Feb 2013 03:21 PM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior Republican senator said on Sunday that party colleagues will drop tactics to delay a vote on former Senator Chuck Hagel to be defense secretary, saying that President Barack Obama's nominee likely has sufficient support to be confirmed into this key post. "We will have a vote when we get back, and I am confident that Senator Hagel will probably have the votes necessary to be confirmed as the secretary of defense," Arizona Senator John McCain, who has led the opposition against his former Republican colleague, told NBC's "Meet the Press" program. ...

Top 100 arms makers' arms sales fall in 2011: study Posted: 17 Feb 2013 03:04 PM PST STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Arms sales by the 100 biggest weapons makers fell for the first time since the mid-90s in 2011 as economies slowed and military equipment purchases were reduced for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, a leading think-tank said on Monday. Sales totaled $410 billion, a 5-percent fall adjusted for currency swings, from $411 billion in 2010, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which carries out independent research on international security, armaments and disarmament said in a statement. ...

Series of bombings in Baghdad area kill dozens Posted: 17 Feb 2013 02:59 PM PST BAGHDAD (AP) — Car bombs tore through shopping areas within minutes of each other in mainly Shiite neighborhoods of the Iraqi capital on Sunday, killing at least 37 people and wounding more than 100.

US lawmakers meet with Iranian exiles in Paris Posted: 17 Feb 2013 02:44 PM PST PARIS (AP) — With its militant wing no longer a terror organization as far as the U.S. government is concerned, an Iranian opposition group hosted a U.S. House delegation for the first time Sunday and briefed the lawmakers on the fallout of a deadly rocket attack at a refugee camp in Iraq.

Iranian dissident group is viable opposition: U.S. congressmen Posted: 17 Feb 2013 02:11 PM PST PARIS (Reuters) - Four U.S. congressmen met an Iranian dissident leader on Sunday and urged President Barack Obama to treat her group as an alternative to Tehran's government, four months after its removal from a list of terrorist organizations. The bipartisan group pressed Obama to talk to the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) rather than Tehran, after Iran's highest authority rebuffed an offer of talks by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. ...

Lawmakers chide Obama for not protecting Iranian dissidents Posted: 17 Feb 2013 02:11 PM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lawmakers complained on Sunday that President Barack Obama had failed to protect Iranian dissidents from persecution by Tehran following a deadly attack on their camp near Baghdad, and urged they be allowed back to their long-time base in Iraq. A congressional delegation led by Dana Rohrabacher, chairman of the Republican-controlled House subcommittee on Europe, said that the Obama administration should not have backed the movement of members of Iranian dissident group Mujahadin-e-Khalq, or MEK, to a place where they would not be safe. ...

Lindsay Graham and Hagel Make Nice (For Now) Posted: 17 Feb 2013 11:43 AM PST Lindsay Graham and Chuck Hagel seem to have made nice for the time being. Graham said on Fox News Sunday this morning that Hagel wrote him a letter denying ever connecting the State Department to the Israeli Foreign Minister's office. It was alleged that Hagel made the implication that the Department was merely an extension of the Israeli office while speaking at Rutgers University in 2007. It was a serious point of contention during Hagel's marathon confirmation session with the Senate a few weeks ago. "He did not recall saying that," Graham said on Sunday. "He disavows saying that. ...

Rise of Islamists frays strategic UAE-Egyptian relations Posted: 17 Feb 2013 09:30 AM PST DUBAI (Reuters) - Days before his overthrow, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak received a senior visitor from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), one of several Gulf monarchies long supportive of the most Arab populous country and its veteran strongman. What transpired between Mubarak and Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan is not known, beyond the fact that a letter from UAE ruler Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan was delivered. ...

Bahrain says arrests eight on "terror-related" charges Posted: 17 Feb 2013 08:00 AM PST DUBAI (Reuters) - Bahrain has arrested eight nationals in a militant cell with links to Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, the interior minister of the U.S.-allied Gulf Arab state said in remarks published on Sunday. The official Bahrain News Agency reported the minister, Shaikh Rashed bin Abdullah al Khalifa, as saying the eight had received training in weapons and explosives and also obtained funding from outside Bahrain. ...

Analysis: Rise of Islamists frays strategic UAE-Egyptian relations Posted: 17 Feb 2013 07:06 AM PST DUBAI (Reuters) - Days before his overthrow, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak received a senior visitor from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), one of several Gulf monarchies long supportive of the most Arab populous country and its veteran strongman. What transpired between Mubarak and Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan is not known, beyond the fact that a letter from UAE ruler Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan was delivered. ...

Bomb disables Iraq fuel oil pipeline Posted: 17 Feb 2013 06:58 AM PST BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Attackers bombed and disabled a pipeline carrying fuel oil from Iraq's largest refinery to a province north of Baghdad, the oil ministry said on Sunday. "A bomb attack led to an explosion in the 16-inch pipeline transporting fuel oil from Baji refinery to Nineveh province," said ministry spokesman Asim Jihad. He said the ministry expected repairs from the blast - which occurred early on Saturday some 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad - to take several days. Fleets of trucks were transporting oil to Nineveh, which gets all its domestic fuel via the damaged pipeline. ...

Blasts hit Shi'ite districts in Baghdad, killing 26 Posted: 17 Feb 2013 03:55 AM PST BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Several car bombs exploded in Shi'ite Muslim neighborhoods across Iraq's capital Baghdad on Sunday morning, killing at least 26 people in blasts that tore into shops, restaurants and busy commercial streets. No-one claimed responsibility for the attacks but Sunni Muslim insurgents have stepped up their operations since the beginning of the year in a bid to undermine the Shi'ite-led government and trigger deeper intercommunal fighting. ...

Iraqi officials say 28 killed in series of blasts Posted: 17 Feb 2013 01:44 AM PST BAGHDAD (AP) — A series of car bombs exploded within minutes of each other in and around Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 28 people and wounding dozens in overwhelmingly Shiite areas.

Iraqi officials say 23 killed in series of blasts Posted: 17 Feb 2013 01:04 AM PST BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi officials say a series of car bombs has killed at least 23 people and wounded dozens in Shiite areas of Baghdad.

Bomb kills 64 in Pakistan's Quetta Posted: 16 Feb 2013 11:34 PM PST QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Sixty-four people including school children died on Saturday in a bomb attack carried out by extremists from Pakistan's Sunni Muslim majority, police said. A spokesman for Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni group, claimed responsibility for the bomb in Quetta, which caused casualties in the town's main bazaar, a school and a computer center. Police said most of the victims were Shi'ites. Burned school bags and books were strewn around. ...

Bahrain: Alleged terror cell tied to Iran, allies Posted: 16 Feb 2013 10:39 PM PST MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — Bahrain's interior minister says police have arrested eight members of an alleged terrorist cell linked to Iran and other countries following widespread clashes in the Gulf nation during protests marking the second anniversary of an Arab Spring-inspired uprising.

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