Yahoo! News: Iraq

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• Obama seeks to reassure Saudi Arabia over Iran, Syria
• New details emerge in Blackwater shootings case
• Execution Is Up 15 Percent Globally, and These 5 Countries Do It Most
• Obama says U.S. military strikes could not have stopped Syria misery
• Exclusive: Russia threatened countries ahead of UN vote on Ukraine - envoys
• Obama meets with Saudi king, weighs new Syria aid
• Navy says goodbye to sub damaged by worker's arson
• Why Saudi frustration with Obama might be a good thing
• Saudis woo Pakistan with $1.5 billion grant -- Why now?
• Syriac Orthodox patriarch buried near Damascus
• Navy says goodbye to arson-damaged submarine
• Obama meets with Saudi king to reassure key ally
• UN prolongs probe of Syria rights violations
• Slovak president race: known quantity vs. upstart
• Three killed in fierce clashes in Iraq's Anbar
• Obama in Saudi Arabia to reassure key Gulf ally
• Obama makes fence-mending trip to Saudi Arabia
• Triple bombing hits Baghdad market area, killing 4
• Departing Europe, Obama seeks to reassure Saudis
• Obama and Nuclear Terrorism
• U.N. warns of increasing militant links between Iraq, Syria
• UN: 400,000 displaced this year in Iraq violence
• Filmmaker Tells Colbert That Donald Rumsfeld Was Charming but Clueless
• Why Obama could get a rough reception from Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah

Obama seeks to reassure Saudi Arabia over Iran, Syria Posted: 28 Mar 2014 04:57 PM PDT By Jeff Mason and Steve Holland RIYADH (Reuters) - President Barack Obama sought to reassure Saudi King Abdullah on Friday that he would support moderate Syrian rebels and reject a bad nuclear deal with Iran, during a visit designed to allay the kingdom's concerns that its decades-old U.S. alliance had frayed. Flying by helicopter to the king's desert camp, Obama underscored the importance of Washington's relationship with the world's largest oil exporter in a two-hour meeting that focused on the Middle East but did not touch on energy or human rights. Last year senior Saudi officials warned of a "major shift" away from the United States after bitter disagreements over its response to the "Arab spring" uprisings, efforts to negotiate with Iran, and Washington's decision not to intervene militarily in Syria, where Riyadh wants more American support for rebels.

New details emerge in Blackwater shootings case Posted: 28 Mar 2014 04:47 PM PDT WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. prosecutors say they intend to introduce evidence at an upcoming trial of private contractor Blackwater security guards of deep hostility by several of the guards toward the Iraqi civilian population in the year before shootings that killed 14 Iraqis and wounded at least 18 others.

Execution Is Up 15 Percent Globally, and These 5 Countries Do It Most Posted: 28 Mar 2014 03:45 PM PDT In Saudi Arabia, five convicted men last May were publicly beheaded in the city of Jizan, their dangling, decapitated bodies strapped to a horizontal pole. In Iran, during just one weekend last October, authorities executed 20 people. The United States is the only country in the Americas to carry out legal executions; Capital punishment around the world, from the Middle East and Asia to the U.S., remains an all-too-common reality, jumping a startling 15 percent in 2013, with the U.S. ranked fifth among those countries that put the most people to death, according to a new Amnesty International report released this week.

Obama says U.S. military strikes could not have stopped Syria misery Posted: 28 Mar 2014 03:35 PM PDT The United States could not have stopped the humanitarian crisis in Syria with military strikes, President Barack Obama said in a television interview airing on Friday, and said U.S. troops had reached their limits after long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama was asked in an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley whether he regretted not applying U.S. force in Syria, where the three-year civil war has killed more than 140,000 people and displaced millions. "It is, I think, a false notion that somehow we were in a position to, through a few selective strikes, prevent the kind of hardship that we've seen in Syria," Obama said. It's after a decade of war, you know, the United States has limits," he said.

Exclusive: Russia threatened countries ahead of UN vote on Ukraine - envoys Posted: 28 Mar 2014 03:19 PM PDT By Louis Charbonneau UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Russia threatened several Eastern European and Central Asian states with retaliation if they voted in favor of a United Nations General Assembly resolution this week declaring invalid Crimea's referendum on seceding from Ukraine, U.N. diplomats said. The disclosures about Russian threats came after Moscow accused Western countries of using "shameless pressure, up to the point of political blackmail and economic threats," in an attempt to coerce the United Nations' 193 member states to join it in supporting the non-binding resolution on the Ukraine crisis.

Obama meets with Saudi king, weighs new Syria aid Posted: 28 Mar 2014 02:23 PM PDT RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — The United States is considering allowing shipments of portable air defense systems to Syrian rebels, a U.S. official said Friday, as President Barack Obama sought to reassure Saudi Arabia's king that the U.S. is not taking too soft a stance in Syria and other Mideast conflicts.

Navy says goodbye to sub damaged by worker's arson Posted: 28 Mar 2014 01:48 PM PDT KITTERY, Maine (AP) — The Navy said farewell Friday to the USS Miami, the nuclear-powered submarine whose service was cut short when a shipyard employee trying to get out of work set it on fire, causing $700 million in damage.

Why Saudi frustration with Obama might be a good thing Posted: 28 Mar 2014 01:09 PM PDT Saudi Arabia was the home country of 15 of the 19 hijackers who carried out the 9/11 attacks on the US, as well as deceased Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden. During the war in Iraq, the Saudi government looked the other way as money flowed from wealthy Saudis and religious charities to the Sunni insurgency. Yet President Barack Obama, who visits Saudi Arabia today, is supposed to be worried what King Abdullah and the rest of the ruling family thinks about him? Over seven decades, the United States and Saudi Arabia forged a strategic alliance that became a linchpin of the regional order: a liberal democracy and an ultraconservative monarchy united by shared interests in the stability of the Middle East and the continued flow of oil.

Saudis woo Pakistan with $1.5 billion grant -- Why now? Posted: 28 Mar 2014 10:34 AM PDT Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have long had warm ties, but the no-strings-attached gift sparked immediate concern from Pakistani journalists, security experts, and opposition politicians, who question whether the grant is part of a behind-the-scenes deal for Pakistan to provide weapons for Syrian rebels. "There are no free lunches in foreign diplomacy," says Baqir Sajjad, a journalist at Pakistan's Dawn newspaper, which has published articles questioning the deal.   The grant was confirmed at a briefing by Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's advisor on national security and foreign affairs, who also said that Saudi Arabia had agreed to purchase weapons from Pakistan.  The Pakistan government declined to specify what kind of weapons the Kingdom was looking for and denied that any arms purchased by Saudi Arabia will be sent to Syria.

Syriac Orthodox patriarch buried near Damascus Posted: 28 Mar 2014 10:16 AM PDT DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — The patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church, who led one of the world's oldest Christian sects, was buried in a village near Damascus on Friday after an elaborate memorial service in the Syrian capital's cathedral.

Navy says goodbye to arson-damaged submarine Posted: 28 Mar 2014 09:33 AM PDT KITTERY, Maine (AP) — The Navy said farewell Friday to the USS Miami, the nuclear-powered submarine whose service was cut short when a shipyard employee trying to get out of work set it on fire.

Obama meets with Saudi king to reassure key ally Posted: 28 Mar 2014 08:44 AM PDT RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — President Barack Obama paid a visit Friday to the desert oasis of wary ally King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, hoping to reassure the aging monarch who is nervously watching Washington's negotiations with Iran and other U.S. policy in the Middle East.

UN prolongs probe of Syria rights violations Posted: 28 Mar 2014 08:36 AM PDT The UN on Friday lamented the devastating violence in Syria and extended a probe into the "gross, systematic and widespread" human rights abuses in the war-ravaged country. The 47-member UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution extending for yet another year the mandate of a commission of inquiry that it had created in 2011. The resolution, submitted by Saudi Arabia and Britain, also reiterated a demand that Syria "cooperate fully" with the team tasked with probing rights abuses in the country, and give it "immediate, full and unfettered access" to its territory. The resolution was adopted with 32 votes in favour, four against, including Russia and China, and 11 abstentions.

Slovak president race: known quantity vs. upstart Posted: 28 Mar 2014 07:26 AM PDT Slovakia's presidential runoff on Saturday pits the country's best-known politician — a prime minister whose party has a lock on parliament — against a businessman-turned philanthropist who is hoping to capitalize on a corruption scandal that reached up into high levels of government.

Three killed in fierce clashes in Iraq's Anbar Posted: 28 Mar 2014 07:21 AM PDT Ongoing clashes between anti-government fighters and soldiers near a militant-held city on Baghdad's doorstep have killed at least three people and wounded dozens more, officials said Friday. The latest unrest erupted Thursday night in Anbar province, a mostly desert region in western Iraq along the Syrian border, where security forces have failed for months to evict insurgents from key territory. Army forces began shelling the region of Zoba, which lies just south of Fallujah, local officials said, sparking clashes with militants. "There were clashes and shelling against Zoba from yesterday (Thursday) evening until today, and it is still going on," said Faisal Essawi, an official working in Amriyat al-Fallujah, the nearest town.

Obama in Saudi Arabia to reassure key Gulf ally Posted: 28 Mar 2014 07:20 AM PDT RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — President Barack Obama opened a fence-mending visit to Saudi Arabia Friday, arriving in the oil-rich Gulf nation for meetings to reassure its elderly monarch of the U.S. commitment to the Arab world.

Obama makes fence-mending trip to Saudi Arabia Posted: 28 Mar 2014 05:55 AM PDT ROME (AP) — President Barack Obama is making a fence-mending mission to Saudi Arabia, an important Middle East ally that's grown nervous as the U.S. negotiates with Iran and pulls out troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Triple bombing hits Baghdad market area, killing 4 Posted: 28 Mar 2014 02:07 AM PDT BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi authorities say a triple bombing has struck a busy market area in northern Baghdad, killing four people.

Departing Europe, Obama seeks to reassure Saudis Posted: 28 Mar 2014 12:08 AM PDT ROME (AP) — President Barack Obama is leaving the European continent and shifting his attention from an Eastern European power play to the complicated religious and tribal politics of the Middle East.

Obama and Nuclear Terrorism Posted: 28 Mar 2014 12:00 AM PDT In the Netherlands this week, President Barack Obama confessed a fear: "I continue to be much more concerned, when it comes to our security, with the prospect of a nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan." The president was speaking at a meeting of the Nuclear Security Summit, a conclave of nations that agree to certain worthy actions, such as converting their reactors from the use of highly enriched uranium to newer versions using low-enriched uranium, beefing up security at nuclear facilities, improving radiation detection at airports and seaports, and so forth. But the Islamic Republic of Iran is not on the list. The most likely scenario (God willing, still unlikely) in which terrorists could threaten Manhattan or any other city would be for the most prolific terror-sponsoring state in the world to obtain nuclear weapons.

U.N. warns of increasing militant links between Iraq, Syria Posted: 27 Mar 2014 05:33 PM PDT By Mirjam Donath UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations on Thursday warned about Islamist militant networks increasingly forging links across the border of Syria and Iraq, which is fueling sectarian tensions in a region that has suffered from years of bloodshed. Violence in Iraq reached new highs in 2013, when nearly 8,000 civilians were killed. Its political elite remains deeply divided along sectarian lines, as it has been since after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq 11 years ago this month. "The ongoing conflict in Syria has added a regional dimension to sectarian tensions and is affording terrorist networks the occasion to forge links across the border and expand their support base," U.N. special envoy to Iraq Nickolay Mladenov told the 15-nation Security Council.

UN: 400,000 displaced this year in Iraq violence Posted: 27 Mar 2014 05:24 PM PDT UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations envoy to Iraq says about 400,000 people have been displaced this year by ongoing violence in western Iraq, and the U.N. Security Council is expressing "grave concern" about recent developments particularly in Ramadi and Fallujah.

Filmmaker Tells Colbert That Donald Rumsfeld Was Charming but Clueless Posted: 27 Mar 2014 05:09 PM PDT If anyone is as slippery to interview as former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, it might be filmmaker Errol Morris. In a sit-down with comedian Stephen Colbert, the man behind the biographical documentary The Unknown Known deadpans that even after making his probing documentary with Rumsfeld, the "horror movie" left him with less understanding of why America started wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "There seemed to be nobody home," Morris said of Rumsfeld.

Why Obama could get a rough reception from Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah Posted: 27 Mar 2014 04:38 PM PDT "We've seen several red lines put forward by the president, which went along and became pinkish as time grew, and eventually ended up completely white," Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence head and ambassador to the United States, told an international conference in Monaco last December. Prince Turki's comments were clearly referring to Mr. Obama's decision last year not to strike Syria's Bashar al-Assad even after the president's "red line" on chemical weapons use was crossed. Also hinting that his concerns extend to Obama's dealings with Iran, the prince added, "When that kind of assurance comes from a leader of a country like the United States, we expect him to stand by it. Obama will confront Saudi Arabia's shaken confidence in the US when he sits down with the king.

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