The number of Iraqis killed in violence last month was nearly double the toll for January, authorities said Monday, just days before voters go to the polls in nationwide parliamentary elections. The figures compiled by the health, interior and defence ministries showed that 352 Iraqis -- 211 civilians, 96 police and 45 soldiers -- died as a result of attacks in February ...

A US commander strides down a street in a Kurdish village in northern Iraq, heading a mixed squad of American troops, Iraqi security forces and Kurdish peshmerga fighters. Every man who patrols alongside Captain Nick Loudon is at the forefront of a bold new combined security force that has emerged in northern Iraq after months of delicate political negotiations. Several ...

The fate of a US-backed security force comprising Arabs and Kurds in Iraq's tense north is to be decided after next Sunday's elections, only two months after it was set up to avert a civil war. American and Iraqi officers in Kirkuk, 240 kilometres (150 miles) north of Baghdad, said the tripartite unit's role and numbers ...