Daily Iraq War News - End the War in Iraq and Afghanistan

A bombing in Kirkuk on Tuesday that left at least 35 dead and another 95 injured, along with 6 US casualties on Monday, didn't stop millions of Iraqis from celebrating the withdrawal of occupation forces from their cities.

In Kirkuk, 17 shops and homes were destroyed when a powerful car bomb exploded during the busy evening shopping time. In another the attack Monday against U.S. forces, the military said the four soldiers were killed and two injured as a "result of combat related injuries."

In Mosul, Baghdad, Basra and other cities, citizens and Iraqi soldiers drove around the streets in vehicles draped in flowers and Iraqi flags. Signs read "Iraq: my nation, my glory, my honor." "This day, which we consider a national celebration, is an achievement made by all Iraqis," Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said in a televised address. "Our incomplete sovereignty and the presence of foreign troops is the most serious legacy we have inherited (from Saddam). Those who think that Iraqis are unable to defend their country are committing a fatal mistake."

In Afghanistan, 2 NATO soldiers were killed and 6 injured on Wednesday by an IED in the Helmand province. A 20-year-old from Fort Worth died in a rollover accident on Monday. Three members of a family, including two children, were killed and four wounded when a rocket hit a house in eastern Kunar province. One policeman was killed and three wounded when their checkpoint was attacked by insurgents in Rabaat Sangee district.

Iraq awarded a lucrative oil contract to BP and China National Petroleum Corp., on Wednesday, while rejecting other companies' offers for other oil fields. The joint BP-CNPC bid was for the al-Rumeila oil field, one of the largest in the world. The energy companies are expected to increase production at the oil field by 50 percent, to 285,000 barrels a day, for a service charge of $2 for each additional barrel produced. The Iraqi government rejected bids for five other oil fields and a natural gas field because the bidders did not agree to the service charge set by the Ministry of Oil. Much of the auction was broadcast live on state television, which Ministry of Oil spokesman Assem Jihad said was a sign of the transparency of the process. Iraq plans to open bidding this year on 10 more oil fields and one natural gas field, all of which are undeveloped. posted 01 July, 2009

550+ Iraq casualties; Public Iraq probe urged for UK

At least 250 Iraqis were killed and another 300 injured in a week of violence as the U.S. prepares to withdraw to its bases. Iraqis are concerned that "troublemakers" are trying to create a situation whereby Iraq would ask for continued occupation. Security was tightened across the capital on Sunday, with troops and police closing roads and carefully searching cars.

Early in the week, two big bombings in Baghdad and near the northern city of Kirkuk in recent days killed more than 150 people between them. On Friday, a bomb killed at least 13 people at a Baghdad market.

On Sunday, a car bomb wounded seven policemen when it exploded in the car park of a police training center in western Baghdad while another bomb wounded six civilians when it exploded near a U.S. military patrol in Baghdad's northeastern Talbiya district. On Saturday, gunmen killed a preacher inside a mosque.

In Afghanistan on Sunday, seven Afghan policemen and 14 militants were killed in attacks in Farah province. One child was killed and nine people, including four policemen, were wounded when a suicide car bomber rammed his car into a police convoy in Behsud district of eastern Nangarhar province. An Afghan contractor with U.S. -led international troops was killed and two others sustained injuries as a bomb exploded in the back of their car in Khost city capital of Khsot province of eastern Afghanistan on Saturday. NATO forces in southern Afghanistan, boosted by a big influx of U.S. troops, will step up operations in Helmand province and the city of Kandahar soon.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is due to face a Commons debate on Wednesday on a Conservative motion that evidence given to the Iraq inquiry should be heard in public "whenever possible". Sir John Chilcot has said "I believe it will be essential to hold as much of the proceedings of the inquiry as possible in public, consistent with the need to protect national security and to ensure and enable complete candour in the oral and written evidence from witnesses." Former premier Tony Blair will cooperate "fully" with a new British probe into the Iraq war, officials said Wednesday, as the government conceded the inquiry will have the power to apportion blame. In a sign of the controversy that awaits the inquiry, lawmakers said vital questions remained in particular about the reasons for going into war -- the weapons of mass destruction Iraq was alleged to have had were never found -- and how much Cabinet ministers were told. A 2004 Hutton inquiry looked at the suicide of David Kelly, a government scientist named as the possible source of a BBC report claiming the government "sexed up" a dossier on Iraq's military capability. posted 28 June, 2009

Turkish bombs burn Iraqi forests; Iraqi leader killed; 41 Afghan candidates

More than 125 hectares of forest in northern Iraq have been burnt in the past month due to Turkish bombardment, a senior official in Iraqi Kurdistan said Sunday. "More than 500 dhonam [125 hectares, 1.25 square kilometers] of forest was burned as a result of Turkish bombardment this month," said Najat Sufi Hariri, the planning director in Kurdistan's Agriculture Ministry. Aided by U.S. intelligence, Turkish jets have been bombing villages and forests along the border in northern Iraq since December 2007 under a Turkish parliamentary authorization, seeking hideouts of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.

The head of the Iraqi parliament's largest Sunni Arab bloc was gunned down by a teenager Friday after delivering an afternoon prayer sermon. A 15-year-old boy opened fire on Harith al-Obeidi at a mosque in western Baghdad. Al-Obeidi led the Iraqi Accordance Front bloc in parliament. Mosque guards gunned him down, but not before he had killed five people, including al-Obeidi, and wounded 12 more. Leaders from all of Iraq’s major political parties gathered Saturday to mourn al-Obeidi staging an elaborate funeral that was broadcast live on Iraqi state television. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

In Baqouba on Sunday, Iraqi security forces arrested four suspected insurgents during a raid. In Mosul, aroadside bomb targeted a U.S. military patrol, wounded two civilians and unknown gunmen threw a hand grenade at a police patrol, wounding two policemen and one civilian. A bomb attached to a car belonging to a member of a government-backed militia detonated at his house in Baghdad's al-Doura district. The U.S. military said Iraqi police seized a large stockpile of heavy ordnance, explosives, weapons and small arms ammunition on Saturday from a home in Nassiriya.

In Afghanistan on Sunday, a couple who worked as health workers in Farah province were found shot dead in their home. Fighters killed two policemen in an attack in southeastern Paktia province. Insurgents killed a religious leader overnight in Paktia. Afghan security forces killed two militants and wounded 14 others during an operation in northwestern Faryab. A suicide car bomber hit a fleet of fuel tankers intended for a NATO base in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing eight Afghans and wounding 21. A NATO soldier was killed on Friday. In unusually firm remarks, the chief of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan said there was an “urgent need to review” the Special Operations forces raids and airstrikes that have killed Afghan civilians.

Afghanistan's electoral commission said Saturday that President Hamid Karzai and 40 other candidates will appear on the ballot for president this August in Afghanistan's second presidential election since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban regime. posted 14 June, 2009