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OSLO (AFP) - The founder of radical Islamist group Ansar al-Islam was questioned in Oslo by German police ahead of the arrests in Germany of three men suspected of plotting to attack visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allaiwi. German police interrogated Mullah Krekar in Oslo early last week and he is thought to be linked to at least one of the men arrested on Friday on suspicion of planning attacks during Allawi's visit, the Norwegian daily VG reported Sunday. All three have been ordered held over their alleged membership of Ansar al-Islam, described by German authorities as a foreign terrorist...

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his main rival Iyad Allawi are set to win the same number of seats in Iraq's parliament, according to an AFP projection based on 80 percent of votes cast. Maliki's State of Law Alliance and Allawi's Iraqiya bloc are on pace to garner 87 seats each in Iraq's 325-member Council of Representatives, with less than 9,000 votes separating the two nationwide

Ali Allawi's memoir The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace certainly deserves the praise and attention it has been getting (even from writers like Maureen Dowd, so eager to score cheap points against the Bush administration that—even while rebuking others for having insufficient grasp of Iraqi reality—she confused the author with his cousin Iyad Allawi and called him a "puppet" into the bargain). The book is written with a very strong combination of heart and mind by someone with an enviable command of English who both knows and cares a good deal about Iraq. He does not...

BAGHDAD, Iraq — FNC's Dana Lewis It was all positive on election day in Iraq. After all how should we, could we, report it any differently. Violence? All those threats from Al Qaeda to blow up everything and everyone? There were only 14 minor attacks on polling stations. Mostly drive by shootings that didn’t result in voting disruptions. A bomb in Mosul killed one man. A rocket in the Green Zone, which rattled the ground where I stood doing a live report for FOX News at 7 a.m. as the polls opened, injured three people. But over all? Peaceful. And...

Gunmen have set ablaze an office belonging to the Iraqi National Reconciliation Movement of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. The gunmen overnight sprayed bullets in the air and torched the office in the Shi'ite city of Karbala, 80 kilometers south of Baghdad.

Hand it to Secretary of State Rice. She knows how to make lemonade out of lemons. When asked on CNN this week her reaction to a communique signed by Iraqi leaders on Monday that recognized a "legitimate right to resistance," she said, "I think what they were trying to do was to get a sense of political inclusion while recognizing that violence and terrorism should not be a part of resistance." 'snip' The State Department, according to Iraqi officials I've spoken with, put tremendous pressure on elected leaders to attend this parley in Cairo. And the see-no-evil reaction to the...

(Q) What is your assessment of the current situation in Iraq? (A) The Iraqi situation is worrisome and among the main dangers that Iraq is going through at present are the cracks in national unity, the absence of the state's institutions, and the economic stagnation and even recession. There is no vision of how to proceed forward. Consequently, the hostile forces, whether inside or abroad, are trying to stop the cycle of development. We find today an absence of even the institutions we had built during our government's short period in office and by this; I mean the judicial, security,...

THE editor of Melbourne's The Age newspaper has defended Australia's Journalist of the Year, Paul McGeough, in the wake of revelations that he may have erred in two significant reports he filed from Iraq. McGeough claimed in an article published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald that former Iraqi interim leader Iyad Allawi shot dead as many as six prisoners in June last year. But the story was discredited by a report yesterday that Iraqi officials and US special forces bodyguards assigned to Allawi had passed lie detector tests in denying the murder allegations. "My view is that...

Baghdad, 23 May - The number two of the al-Qaeda network, Ayman al-Zawahiri, visited Iraq under a false name in September 1999 to take part in the ninth Popular Islamic Congress, former Iraqi premier Iyad Allawi has revealed to pan-Arab daily al-Hayat. In an interview, Allawi made public information discovered by the Iraqi secret service in the archives of the Saddam Hussein regime, which sheds light on the relationship between Saddam Hussein and the Islamic terrorist network. He also said that both al-Zawahiri and Jordanian militant al-Zarqawi probably entered Iraq in the same period. "Al-Zawahiri was summoned by Izza Ibrahim...

The original architects of the U.S. empire—long before its celebration by today’s neoconservatives—understood the importance of legitimacy in the neo-colonialist enterprise. In order to achieve some degree of legitimacy, it was important to create a native stooge—what some call a “comprador”—heavily dependent upon American power to govern in the interests of the U.S. government. In Iraq we have had the proverbial “Three Stooges,” as in the movies, often beating up on each other. The first of these was Saddam Hussein, who was essential in helping evict the British from control in Iraq and then in attacking Iran, but who became...

Ahmed Resain has his back to the door, so he does not see the gunman alight from a car outside his rudimentary Al Pasha hairdressing salon, in Baghdad's dusty Al-Salam quarter. The assailant strides deliberately into the shop and coldly turns to face Ahmed. He presses a pistol to the stunned barber's lower lip, carefully angling the weapon to ensure that the bullet exits through his left jaw. Ahmed, 37, is still standing - but three shots to his legs as the gunman makes his getaway drop him to the floor in a pool of his own blood. His survival...

Blair flew to Iraq from Jordan Below is the full text of a statement by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair on Tuesday's surprise visit to Baghdad, where he was greeted by his Iraqi counterpart Iyad Allawi. The two leaders also took questions from reporters. I feel a great sense of honour and also humility at being here and I would like to thank you for your leadership and the immense courage that you and your colleagues have shown. I've just visited members of the electoral commission and met some of their staff, and I said to them that I thought...

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraq's Prime Minister Iyad Allawi warned France against appeasing insurgents in order to secure the release of two of its nationals held hostage in the country as he prepared to travel to Brussels. "France is bogged down by the past," said Allawi responding to a question by reporters on France's support for a conference by Iraqi civil society groups to be held in parallel to an official meeting on Iraqi elections scheduled for the end of the month in Egypt. "France must revise its policies towards Iraq because its actions and statements are driven by the fact...

In a clear sign that Iraq's interim government is ready to fight fire with fire, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi reportedly threatened to have rebel cleric Moqtada al Sadr beheaded earlier this year unless violence perpetrated by his Mahdi terrorist army in Najaf subsided. On Friday, NBC's Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski recounted a meeting between Allawi and Grand Ayatollah al Husseini al Sistani in August after al Sistani was brought back from London, where he was being treated for a heart ailment.

In an exclusive interview, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi discusses the recent hostage situation in Iraq, the media's portrayal of the war-torn nation and the upcoming elections in January. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec04/allawi_9-23.html

IRAQ'S interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, has accused France of deluding itself that it is immune from terrorism because of its opposition to the war to oust Saddam Hussein. In an interview, Mr Allawi also urged European governments, including the French, not to be "half-hearted" in combating terrorism and to close ranks with his country in its battle against the "evil forces" undermining security. "No civilised country can draw back; the campaign against terrorism must be a global one, because the challenge is global," he said. "The French, like all democratic countries, cannot let themselves be satisfied with adopting a...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq (news - web sites)'s interim prime minister issued a decree allowing a controversial newspaper to reopen after it had been closed by U.S. officials in March, setting off months of fighting between U.S. forces and militants loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The weekly Al-Hawza was the mouthpiece of al-Sadr's "Sadrist" movement, routinely carrying his fiery sermons on its front page along with articles sharply critical of the U.S.-led occupation, which formally ended June 28. Iraq's former American governor, L. Paul Bremer, ordered the newspaper closed for two months on March 28 for allegedly inciting...

WITNESSES have reportedly told an Australian journalist how new Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi shot and killed up to six prisoners just days before his government took control of the country. A newspaper report today said the two witnesses saw Dr Allawi pull a pistol and execute suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station. Dr Allawi's office has denied the claims and branded them "outrageous". The witnesses said the handcuffed and blindfolded prisoners were lined up against a wall in a courtyard next to the maximum-security cell block in which they were held at the Al-Amariyah security centre. They say...

PARIS - After a 13-year interruption, France and Iraq intend to re-establish diplomatic relations within the next few days, the French Foreign Ministry confirmed Monday. Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi met Monday with Bernard Bajolet, France's highest diplomatic representative in Iraq, and discussed restoration of ties that Saddam Hussein broke off in 1991 during the Gulf War, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said. "Mr. Allawi said he wanted to do it as fast as possible so that France can participate in the reconstruction of Iraq," the spokesman said. "We welcomed that very positively." France opposed the U.S.-led war that toppled Saddam...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 28 — In a surprise, secret ceremony that was hastily convened to decrease the chances of more violence, United States officials today handed over sovereignty to Iraqi leaders, formally ending the American occupation two days earlier than scheduled. In a tightly guarded room behind high walls, L. Paul Bremer III, the top United States administrator, presented a formal letter recognizing Iraq's sovereignty to Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Just 30 or so people were present for what Dr. Allawi described as the "historic" handover. A few hours later, Mr. Bremer flew off on a military plane, leaving...