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Qayis and Layith Qazali. Click to view. The kidnapping of five British contractors - four security guards and a financial consultant - has long been suspected of being an Iranian-backed job. A recent report in the Times Online confirmed an Iranian extremist group has demanded the release of Qais Qazali, the leader of the Iranian-backed Qazali network, in exchange for the five Britons. "Senior Iraqi government sources say their captors have promised they will not be harmed but any rescue attempt would endanger them," the Times Online reported. "They claimed the hostages will remain prisoners 'for as long as...

BAGHDAD - U.S. forces on a raid in northern Baghdad killed a Shiite militant believed to have masterminded a brazen January attack in Karbala that led to the capture and killing of four U.S. soldiers, the military said Sunday. Troops located Azhar al-Dulaimi on Friday morning and tried to capture him, but he was killed in the ensuing battle, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the spokesman for U.S.-led forces in Iraq, said on CNN's "Late Edition." U.S. troops had been pursuing al-Dulaimi relentlessly since the Jan. 20 attack in the southern city of Karbala, Caldwell said. In that attack, gunmen speaking...

BAGHDAD, Jan 7 (Reuters) - A female Western journalist was kidnapped in Baghdad on Saturday and her translator killed, police said. They said she was on her way to a meeting with a Sunni Arab leader when a car carrying an unknown number of gunmen blocked her vehicle in the Adel district near Malik bin Anas mosque in west Baghdad. The gunmen shot dead her driver, an Iraqi journalist who also worked as her translator, abandoned their car and drove off in hers. There has been a spate of kidnappings of Westerners in Iraq over the past few months...

A chief of list to legislative in Iraq killed in an attack BAGHDAD - the sunnite Mezher Nagi Al-Doulaïmi, chief candidate to legislative of Thursday in Iraq, was killed Tuesday by shootings of unknown in the rebellious Al-Anbar province, in the west of Baghdad, announced a source of safety. The victim was the chief of the free Party Iraqi progressist, a small formation which introduced three candidates, of which Doulaïmi, with the poll in this province. "Of unknown opened fire on its car with Ramadi (Al-Anbar chief town), killing it and wounding a person who accompanied it", according to...

The next vote in Iraq is the Oct. 15 referendum on the nation's constitution, but the political elite is already turning its attention to the general elections scheduled for December. Most Iraqi politicians now expect the constitution to be approved; fears have faded that Sunni Arabs might manage to vote it down. The optimism rises from several developments. First, as more and more Sunni Arabs read the proposed text, now widely distributed, they realize it is not as bad as some of their self-styled leaders claimed. The latest suicide-killer attacks have also come as a wake-up call to Sunnis not...

Dulaimi accuses Syria of 'exporting destruction' Iraqi Defence Minister Saadun al-Dulaimi accused neighbouring Syria of "exporting destruction" to his country by allowing insurgents to sneak across their border. Iraqi authorities announced the closure of a border crossing to Syria near the rebel bastion town of Tal Afar where a major counter-insurgency offensive involving about 10,000 Iraqi and US troops was underway. "I call on our neighbours to fear God and stop exporting destruction to Iraq," said the defence minister, in reference to Syria which stands accused in Baghdad of turning a blind eye to cross-border infiltrations. "The regions of Al-Qaim,...

More signs of Syria turn up in Iraq The Iraqi ambassador to Syria tells the Monitor that photos of high-ranking Syrian officials were found in Fallujah. By Nicholas Blanford | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor DAMASCUS, SYRIA - When US troops stormed the rebel-held city of Fallujah last month, they uncovered photos of senior Syrian officials that have further strained the already tense relations between Syria and Iraq, according to the Iraqi ambassador to Syria.Several captured insurgents were found in possession of the photographs, confirmation, according to Iraqi officials, that some elements in the Syrian regime - perhaps...