Yahoo! News: Iraq

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• Video raises worries of Britons fighting with Syria militants
• No agreement on Iran invite to Syria conference
• Bombs, shooting kill at least 14 in northern Iraq: police
• No deal on Iran's role at looming Syria peace talks
• Attacks kill 20 in Iraq
• Syria most dangerous country for media in 2013, 126 dead worldwide: INSI
• British ex-soldiers jailed for mosque firebomb revenge attack
• Pakistan's Musharraf in U.N. appeal to try to halt treason trial
• Senate Panel Doubts Geneva Accord Will Curtail Tehran's Nuclear Drive, Urges Obama Administration To Grant Political Refugee Status to Iranian Dissidents in Iraq, says OIAC
• How far can any US-Iran rapprochement go?
• U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno to Speak at National Press Club, Jan. 7
• Iraq violence more than doubles in 2013: is country headed off the cliff?
• Syria Kurds 'to send two delegations to peace talks'
• Terrorists for Human Rights
• Top 10 U.S. Foreign Policy Blunders of 2013
• Kazakhstan to join U.N. peacekeeping for first time
• Double bombing kills 6 in Iraq
• Suicide bombers kill 36 Shi'ite pilgrims in Iraq: police
• Why Neo-Isolationism Is Soaring
• Today in History

Video raises worries of Britons fighting with Syria militants Posted: 20 Dec 2013 03:05 PM PST By Mark Hosenball WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An Internet video surfaced this week depicting a masked man in Syria with a working-class British accent, urging British Muslims to travel there and join one of the most radical Islamist rebel militias fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad. In the three-minute video, the man, wearing a black hood with eyeholes, loads what he says is a Glock 19 pistol with bullets he says come from the Free Syrian Army, a more moderate rebel group supported by the West. "Where are you when they are slaughtering our children and our fathers?," the man says during the course of a diatribe in which he taunts fellow British Muslims and encourages them to go into battle. After firing a burst of gunfire into the air, the video ends with the man saying: "I also invite you all over to the land of jihad." The video, posted on YouTube on December 17 and being studied by Western intelligence agencies, highlights what security officials say is an increasingly large role played in the Syrian conflict by foreign fighters, including Europeans.

No agreement on Iran invite to Syria conference Posted: 20 Dec 2013 02:33 PM PST GENEVA (AP) — The U.S. is blocking Iran's participation at the Syria peace conference planned for next month. but the other delegations have been agreed on and will include other regional players such as Saudi Arabia, officials said Friday.

Bombs, shooting kill at least 14 in northern Iraq: police Posted: 20 Dec 2013 12:35 PM PST Bombings and shootings killed at least 14 people in northern Iraq on Friday, police said, the latest in what has become the fiercest spate of violence in the country in years. It was not immediately clear who was behind the attacks, but Sunni Islamist militants including al Qaeda have been regaining ground in Iraq, seeking to undermine the Shi'ite-led government. Two roadside bombs went off in a yard used for selling cattle in the northern disputed town of Tuz Khurmato, 170 km (100 miles) north of Baghdad, killing nine people and wounding 24, police and medics said. In the northern town of Hawija, 210 km north of the capital, militants stormed two adjacent houses, shot dead five members of the family that owned them and then bombed the buildings before escaping, police said.

No deal on Iran's role at looming Syria peace talks Posted: 20 Dec 2013 12:25 PM PST Negotiators failed Friday to reach an agreement on whether Iran should be invited to Syria peace talks in Switzerland next month, but Tehran is not yet "off the list", global peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said. "On Iran, we haven't agreed yet. It's no secret that we in the United Nations welcome the participation of Iran, but our partners in the United States are still not convinced that Iran's participation would be the right thing," Brahimi told reporters after talks with US and Russian officials. "We have agreed that we will be talking a little bit more to see if we can come to an agreement about this," said the veteran Algerian mediator, tasked by the United Nations and the Arab League with brokering peace talks.

Attacks kill 20 in Iraq Posted: 20 Dec 2013 12:17 PM PST Kirkuk (Iraq) (AFP) - Attacks in Iraq, including bombings in a market and another at a cemetery where victims of the earlier attack were to be buried, killed 20 people on Friday, officials said.

Syria most dangerous country for media in 2013, 126 dead worldwide: INSI Posted: 20 Dec 2013 11:32 AM PST GENEVA (Reuters) - A total of 126 journalists and other media workers around the world have died on the job this year, with Syria the most dangerous place to work for the second year in a row, the International News Safety Institute said on Friday. That was 21 fewer than last year, but INSI said the incidence of kidnappings and disappearances was rising. The institute, which organizes safety courses for reporters and monitors risks in trouble spots, said 19 of the dead had lost their lives in Syria. ...

British ex-soldiers jailed for mosque firebomb revenge attack Posted: 20 Dec 2013 11:29 AM PST Two former British soldiers who firebombed a mosque in a bid to avenge the grisly murder of a soldier by Islamic extremists were jailed for six years each on Friday. Stuart Harness, 34, and Gavin Humphries, 37, made petrol bombs and hurled them at the Islamic Cultural Centre in the eastern English fishing town of Grimsby on May 26. A third defendant, Daniel Cressey, was also jailed for six years for helping Harness and Humphries by driving them to the mosque. The ex-soldiers carried out the firebombing four days after Islamic extremists Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale -- who had no connection with the Grimsby mosque -- hacked soldier Lee Rigby to death outside his barracks in London.

Pakistan's Musharraf in U.N. appeal to try to halt treason trial Posted: 20 Dec 2013 11:06 AM PST By William James LONDON (Reuters) - Lawyers for former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf on Friday appealed to the United Nations to intervene and help prevent him being tried for treason, saying he faced a "show trial". Musharraf's case, initiated by the Pakistani government, focuses on accusations that the former military leader breached the constitution when he imposed emergency rule in 2007. Musharraf's trial is due to begin on December 24. His plea, issued from London by an international legal team, is designed to get the United Nations to urge Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's prime minister, to delay or stop it.

Senate Panel Doubts Geneva Accord Will Curtail Tehran's Nuclear Drive, Urges Obama Administration To Grant Political Refugee Status to Iranian Dissidents in Iraq, says OIAC Posted: 20 Dec 2013 10:06 AM PST WASHINGTON, Dec. 20, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday warned against pinning too much hope on the Interim Geneva Accord signed last month between the Iranian regime and world powers, emphasizing that "final agreement should provide, what has always been contemplated in a final agreement for the last ten years; Iran should be a nuclear free country."   Speaking at a reception at the historic Senate Kennedy Caucus Room, the former presidential candidate also urged President Obama to grant refugee status to 3,000 Iranian dissidents living in an overcrowded camp in Iraq where they are threatened daily by the pro-Iranian regime in Baghdad. Mr. Giuliani said the United States should not think twice about welcoming the dissidents as refugees.

How far can any US-Iran rapprochement go? Posted: 20 Dec 2013 09:51 AM PST The mutual obsession between Iran and the United States could not be more obvious at the former US Embassy in Tehran, where the tour guide – the "official narrator of the Den of Spies" – greets an American visitor.  "It's your home, you can come anytime," says Mohammad Reza Shoghi, tongue-in-cheek, as we step inside to view the array of Spy vs. Spy surveillance equipment and aged shredding machines, and to hear the anti-US narratives that have accumulated in Iran since 52 US diplomats were taken hostage in 1979 and held for 444 days.  But this museum, with its message of perpetual conflict with an enemy of unmitigated evil, contradicts the other story line unfolding as Iran's Islamic revolution matures: a tentative easing of that perpetual US-Iran conflict. The past few months have seen unprecedented face-to-face dialogue over Iran's nuclear program and a promise by centrist President Hassan Rouhani to seek "constructive reengagement" with the West.  This is why the US and Iran are now limiting talks to the nuclear file, and moving carefully.

U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno to Speak at National Press Club, Jan. 7 Posted: 20 Dec 2013 09:21 AM PST WASHINGTON, Dec. 20, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- General Ray Odierno, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, will discuss the future of the army at a National Press Club Speakers Luncheon on January 7.(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20080917/NPCLOGO)Odierno became Chief of Staff in 2011 after being the Commander of United States Joint Forces Command. He previously served as the Commanding General, Multi-National Corps -- Iraq and then the Commanding General of the Multi-National Force in Iraq and has served in the Army for more than 36 years. ...

Iraq violence more than doubles in 2013: is country headed off the cliff? Posted: 20 Dec 2013 09:15 AM PST Political violence in Iraq has become a fact of life, the threat of imminent death a practical consideration for any Iraqi who chooses to attend a crowded market, travel by bus or car between towns or neighborhoods of major cities, commemorate religious holidays, or publicly mourn for friends and relatives of past attacks.

Syria Kurds 'to send two delegations to peace talks' Posted: 20 Dec 2013 05:15 AM PST Kawergosk (Iraq) (AFP) - Syria's Kurds will send two delegations to upcoming peace talks, one with the opposition coalition and another with representatives of President Bashar al-Assad, opposition leader Ahmed Jarba said Friday. "The Kurds will participate in the Geneva meeting in two delegations," Jarba, leader of the National Coalition, told AFP during a visit to the Kawergosk Syrian refugee camp in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region. The Geneva 2 peace talks are scheduled to open in Montreux, Switzerland on January 22. But it seems likely that the Kurdish National Council (KNC), which is part of the opposition coalition, will attend with opposition representatives, while the People's Council of Western Kurdistan (PCWK), which is seen as close to the regime, will accompany the government representatives.

Terrorists for Human Rights Posted: 20 Dec 2013 02:45 AM PST The U.S. government this week said the head of a human-rights organization working on behalf of Islamist political prisoners was also a financier for al Qaeda.

Top 10 U.S. Foreign Policy Blunders of 2013 Posted: 20 Dec 2013 02:15 AM PST This past year was a tough one for President Obama on a number of fronts. There were some highlights in international affairs – Secretary of State John Kerry restarting the Israel-Palestine peace process being the brightest. It seemed President Obama was scrambling from one crisis to the next. Obama was helpless to stop Snowden when he went to Moscow.

Kazakhstan to join U.N. peacekeeping for first time Posted: 20 Dec 2013 01:01 AM PST Kazakhstan, seeking a more prominent role on the world stage, decided on Friday to send officers to aid United Nations peacekeeping missions next year for the first time since independence in 1991. Twenty officers, who will have observer status at U.N. peacekeeping forces, will be sent in groups of five to Haiti, Western Sahara, Ivory Coast and Liberia, in line with a decision by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev backed unanimously by both chambers of the legislature on Friday. It will be the first time the world's ninth-largest nation by area and Central Asia's largest economy, helped by oil production, joins U.N. peacekeeping since it won independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union 22 years ago. Kazakhstan's support of U.N. peacekeeping efforts should assist its candidacy for non-permanent membership of the 15-seat U.N. Security Council, the Defence Ministry said in a statement.

Double bombing kills 6 in Iraq Posted: 20 Dec 2013 12:49 AM PST BAGHDAD (AP) — Authorities in Iraq say a double bombing at a sheep market in a town north of the capital, Baghdad, has killed six people.

Suicide bombers kill 36 Shi'ite pilgrims in Iraq: police Posted: 20 Dec 2013 12:41 AM PST BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Suicide bombings in Iraq killed at least 36 people on Thursday in attacks targeting Shi'ite pilgrims ahead of a major holy day next week, police said. Two years after U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq, violence is at its highest level since 2006-7, when strife between Sunnis and Shi'ites killed tens of thousands of people. The first major attack of the day came when a suicide bomber blew himself up near a funeral tent, killing at least 16 Shi'ite pilgrims and wounding 31 in southern Baghdad's mainly Sunni neighborhood of Doura, police sources said. ...

Why Neo-Isolationism Is Soaring Posted: 20 Dec 2013 12:00 AM PST "Neo-isolationism is the direct product of foolish globalism. Those are not the words of an old America Firster, but the declaration of that icon of the liberal establishment Walter Lippmann in 1967, a year before he endorsed Richard Nixon. Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy were clamoring for retreat and swift withdrawal. In 1972, it was Democratic nominee George McGovern who would run on the neo-isolationist slogan "Come Home, America!" and win the endorsement of the New York Times and Washington Post.

Today in History Posted: 19 Dec 2013 09:02 PM PST Today is Friday, Dec. 20, the 354th day of 2013. There are 11 days left in the year.

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