Yahoo! News: Iraq

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• First US Navy Warship Heads to Black Sea as Potential Backup for Sochi
• UN official dismayed at failure of Syria aid deal
• Feds fight release of man convicted as Iraq agent
• Talking in Geneva, killing in Syria
• More than 1,000 killed in Iraq in January
• UN Syria mediator Brahimi is master of patience
• Over 1,800 people killed in Syria during 'Geneva 2' talks : monitor
• Suicide car bomb kills 5 soldiers in Iraq
• The Geneva Code - What Syria negotiators say, and what they mean
• Turkey wakes up to blowback threat from Al Qaeda-linked fighters in Syria
• Three rockets strike Baghdad airport, no casualties
• AP EXCLUSIVE: Inside Pakistani anti-bomb school
• Global arms sales fall, Russia sales rise sharply in 2012
• Syria’s Israeli Guardian Angel
• As Senate campaigns begin, some Democrats flee Obama
• Unexploded munitions a threat in Sudan's Darfur
• AP EXCLUSIVE: Inside Pakistan army bomb school
• Former Marine Corps Commandant Warns Capitol Hill About a Nuclear Iran
• Suicide bombers storm Iraq ministry building, 24 killed
• Nearly 1,900 dead in Syria since peace talks began: NGO
• Intel chief: al-Qaida wants to attack US

First US Navy Warship Heads to Black Sea as Potential Backup for Sochi Posted: 31 Jan 2014 03:09 PM PST The USS Mount Whitney left its homeport of Gaeta, Italy, today — the first of two U.S. Navy ships that will be operating in the Black Sea during the Sochi Olympics, Pentagon officials said. The other vessel, the frigate USS Taylor, is scheduled to depart...

UN official dismayed at failure of Syria aid deal Posted: 31 Jan 2014 01:28 PM PST UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos deplored the failure of Syrian peace talks to produce a plan for getting aid to besieged communities, while momentum built for Security Council action to pressure the warring sides to allow access.

Feds fight release of man convicted as Iraq agent Posted: 31 Jan 2014 12:55 PM PST INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A former Indiana truck driver convicted of offering to assist Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq has asked a federal judge to let him out of prison, but prosecutors say he should remain behind bars.

Talking in Geneva, killing in Syria Posted: 31 Jan 2014 12:26 PM PST As Syria's regime and opposition held high-profile talks in upscale Swiss hotels, their country's brutal conflict claimed the lives of nearly 1,900 people, far from the international spotlight. President Bashar al-Assad's government, and the opposition National Coalition, have little to show for the talks that began on January 22 in the Swiss town of Montreux and wrapped up Friday in Geneva. No ceasefire was agreed, talks on a transitional government never began, and a deal to allow aid into the besieged Old City of central Homs went nowhere. In the nine days between the start of the conference through to Thursday night, 1,870 people were killed in Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

More than 1,000 killed in Iraq in January Posted: 31 Jan 2014 11:09 AM PST More than 1,000 people were killed in Iraq in January, figures showed Friday, as the country grapples with a surge in attacks and battles militants holding territory on Baghdad's doorstep. The violence, the country's worst since 2008, comes with elections looming in less than three months amid fears Iraq may be slipping back into the all-out conflict that left tens of thousands dead years earlier. World powers have urged the Shiite-led government to reach out to disaffected minority Sunnis but Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has taken a hard line and trumpeted wide-ranging security operations that he and other officials insist are having an impact. That was the highest toll since April 2008, when 1,073 people were killed, at a time when Iraq was slowly emerging from a brutal Sunni-Shiite sectarian war that left tens of thousands dead and scores of others displaced.

UN Syria mediator Brahimi is master of patience Posted: 31 Jan 2014 09:38 AM PST Despite the slim pickings from a week of UN-brokered peace talks between Syria's warring sides, getting them to the table at all was a huge feat in itself. But for international mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, that was all in a day's work in a job that requires patience, persistence, strong will and fine-tuned diplomacy. With tensions aplenty behind closed doors in the Geneva talks, Brahimi has kept his sense of humour. He has not been afraid to drop the smiles when, as alleged, a regime delegate accused him of being biased because he is a Sunni Muslim like most of Syria's rebels, tersely calling the individual to order.

Over 1,800 people killed in Syria during 'Geneva 2' talks : monitor Posted: 31 Jan 2014 08:10 AM PST At least 1,870 people died across Syria during the first nine days of the "Geneva 2" peace negotiations that began in Switzerland on January 22, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday. The Britain-based monitoring group said more than 470 of the deads were civilians, including 40 people who died from inadequate access to food and medicine in areas besieged by government forces. The first round of talks in Geneva ended on Friday without making progress towards ending the civil war and also failed to achieve more modest aims, like an agreement to allow aid convoys into the central city Homs where thousands of civilians have been trapped for months. Aid convoys this week delivered more than 1,000 parcels of humanitarian aid to residents in the besieged Damascus suburb of Yarmouk, which houses 18,000 Palestinians as well as some Syrians.

Suicide car bomb kills 5 soldiers in Iraq Posted: 31 Jan 2014 07:51 AM PST BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi authorities say a suicide car bomb has killed five Iraqi soldiers and destroyed a bridge in the embattled western province of Anbar.

The Geneva Code - What Syria negotiators say, and what they mean Posted: 31 Jan 2014 07:19 AM PST Syria's political foes are beginning to speak a shared language at peace talks in Geneva to end their country's devastating civil war, but the words they utter at the negotiating table have diametrically different meanings to the two sides. With the first round of talks now ended, here is a guide to deciphering the 'Geneva Code' - terminology that President Bashar al-Assad's government delegates and the opposition both use - and the contrasting interpretation each side attaches to their words. It called for a "sustained cessation of armed violence" and a political transition led by a "transitional governing body", which should be formed by mutual consent. International mediator Lakhdar Brahimi says the communique forms the bedrock of his efforts to end the civil war.

Turkey wakes up to blowback threat from Al Qaeda-linked fighters in Syria Posted: 31 Jan 2014 07:07 AM PST Turkey may have reason to brace for retaliatory attacks from Al Qaeda-linked fighters in Syria after striking jihadist targets across the border for the first time this week.  Turkey fired tank and artillery shells on a convoy of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), destroying a bus and two trucks, in response to small-arms fire on a Turkish border post on Tuesday, according to state-run Anadolu news agency. Until now, any Turkish military action has been aimed at Syrian government forces in the form of retaliatory strikes only when shells or bullets strayed across the porous 511 miles of shared border. Concern about a spillover of Syria's three-year-old conflict into Turkey has grown as Al Qaeda-linked fighters in Syria – among the estimated 10,000 foreign jihadists now inside the country – take greater control of rebel areas, pushing out Islamist brigades considered more moderate, as well as the Western-backed Free Syrian Army. "There is a change, a shift of Turkish policy now because they discovered they are really in a dangerous place after Al Qaeda took control of the longest border with Turkey," says a Syrian observer in Antakya, the provincial capital of Hatay, who has studied border events closely since mid-2012.

Three rockets strike Baghdad airport, no casualties Posted: 31 Jan 2014 05:49 AM PST Three rockets were fired at Baghdad's heavily guarded international airport on Friday, hitting a runway and plane but causing no casualties, a security source said. Air traffic was not disrupted, but the ability of militants to strike such a site is likely to heighten concerns about the vulnerability of Iraq's vital infrastructure as security deteriorates across the country. Sunni Islamist militants including an al Qaeda affiliated group have been regaining momentum in Iraq over the past year, driving violence to its highest level in five years, with more than 9,000 people killed in 2013.

AP EXCLUSIVE: Inside Pakistani anti-bomb school Posted: 31 Jan 2014 04:36 AM PST RISALPUR, Pakistan (AP) — Militants in Pakistan have found clever ways to hide homemade bombs. They've been strapped to children's bicycles, hidden inside water jugs and even hung in tree branches. But the most shocking place that Brig. Basim Saeed has heard of such a device being planted was inside a hollowed-out book made to look like a Quran, Islam's holy book.

Global arms sales fall, Russia sales rise sharply in 2012 Posted: 31 Jan 2014 03:06 AM PST Russian firms increased weapons sales sharply in 2012 helped largely by a Kremlin armaments program, while global sales of arms and military services by private companies fell for a second straight year, data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) showed on Friday. While sales by companies in the United States, Canada and most West European countries fell in 2012, arms sales by Russian firms rose by 28 percent, the institute said. The increase mainly reflected large and growing domestic sales which are part of the country's $700 billion 2011-2020 State Armaments Plan, SIPRI said. "The Russian arms industry is gradually reemerging from the ruins of the Soviet industry," Sam Perlo-Freeman, Director of SIPRI's Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme, said.

Syria’s Israeli Guardian Angel Posted: 31 Jan 2014 02:45 AM PST Meet the woman heading a stealth team of aid workers who sneak across Israel's borders to help ease the terrible suffering of Syria's refugees.

As Senate campaigns begin, some Democrats flee Obama Posted: 31 Jan 2014 02:39 AM PST By John Whitesides WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Spooked by President Barack Obama's low approval ratings, some of his fellow Democrats in tough November election races have begun their campaigns by distancing themselves from the White House and asserting their independence from Obama's policies. In what amounts to a survival-first strategy among embattled Democrats crucial to the party's effort to keep control of the Senate, some candidates in conservative states Obama lost in 2012 are aggressively criticizing his healthcare, energy and regulatory policies. The group includes three incumbent senators, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Mark Begich of Alaska, as well as Natalie Tennant, who is seeking to replace retiring Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia.

Unexploded munitions a threat in Sudan's Darfur Posted: 31 Jan 2014 12:47 AM PST El Fasher (Sudan) (AFP) - From aircraft bombs to cluster munitions and grenades, the Ordnance Disposal Office of the international peacekeeping force in Sudan's war-torn Darfur has found and destroyed them all. But for every piece of unexploded weaponry the ODO eliminates, worsening fighting means that other munitions will take their place, posing a threat to farmers and peacekeepers alike. "Those areas where we assess this year, for example, as free, next year or next month could be contaminated again because of some conflict," says Steven Harrop, a British Royal Air Force veteran who is a safety adviser to the 30-member ODO. That means Darfuris returning to their fields to sow their crops can "never be 100 percent confident" weapons are not lying dormant in the soil ready to explode, Harrop said in an interview at the headquarters of UNAMID, the African Union-UN Mission in Darfur.

AP EXCLUSIVE: Inside Pakistan army bomb school Posted: 31 Jan 2014 12:45 AM PST RISALPUR, Pakistan (AP) — Militants in Pakistan have found clever ways to hide homemade bombs. They've been strapped to children's bicycles, hidden inside water jugs and even hung in tree branches. But the most shocking place that Brig. Basim Saeed has heard of such a device being planted was inside a hollowed-out book made to look like a Quran, Islam's holy book.

Former Marine Corps Commandant Warns Capitol Hill About a Nuclear Iran Posted: 30 Jan 2014 10:38 PM PST WASHINGTON, Jan. 31, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following statement was issued by the OIAC: Retired Marine Corps General James Jones, former commandant of the Marine Corps, Supreme Allied Commander Europe and President Obama's first National Security Advisor, warned of the dangers posed by a nuclear-armed Iran. "We are at a crossroads in our history," he told senior Senate staffers at a forum in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. "The threat of an Iranian nuclear program is very serious…there's no reason to think that if they acquired the [nuclear weapons] capability, they wouldn't export it to non-state actors like Hezbollah."

Suicide bombers storm Iraq ministry building, 24 killed Posted: 30 Jan 2014 05:06 PM PST By Suadad al-Salhy BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Six suicide bombers burst into an Iraqi ministry building, took hostages and killed at least 24 people including themselves on Thursday before security forces regained control, security officials said. The brazen attack on the building belonging to the Ministry of Transportation in northeast Baghdad coincided with a month-long standoff between the Iraqi army and anti-government fighters in the western province of Anbar. No group claimed responsibility but suicide bombings in Iraq are the trademark of al-Qaeda linked groups. State buildings are a target for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and its allies that have been regaining momentum in a campaign to destabilize the Shi'ite Muslim-led government.

Nearly 1,900 dead in Syria since peace talks began: NGO Posted: 30 Jan 2014 04:24 PM PST Nearly 1,900 people have been killed in Syria since peace talks opened in Switzerland on January 22, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday. The group said at least 498 civilians were among those killed in Syria since the government and opposition joined peace talks that were due to wrap up later Friday, having produced no signs of progress. The civilian deaths included 431 killed in fighting between rebels and the government, as well as 40 who died from lack of food and medicines in areas under government siege, the Observatory said. Another 208 rebels from ISIL and the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front died in clashes with regime forces, rival rebels or Kurdish militia, the Observatory said, adding that three Kurdish militiamen were also killed.

Intel chief: al-Qaida wants to attack US Posted: 29 Jan 2014 01:04 PM PST WASHINGTON (AP) — The Syrian militant group tied to al-Qaida, the al-Nusra Front, wants to attack the United States and is training a growing cadre of fighters from Europe, the Mideast and even the U.S., the top U.S. intelligence official told Congress on Wednesday.

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