According to the BBC's Nicholas Witchell in a series of interviews in Baghdad called Voices from Inside Iraq. Watch them all. Especially the ones from the coffee shop and the female MP footage. In other Iraq news, the US administration are now talking about troop withdrawals. In fact, the differences on Iraq between the Democrats and

Hey, it’s not all doom and gloom coming out of the Middle East. Take a look at this: Iraq is fast becoming one of the United States’ top customers for military sales. Since January 2007, Iraq has spent $3.1 billion on U.S. weapons. That number looks likely to grow exponentially as Iraq uses its vast unspent

By almost all accounts, the extreme-Salafist takfiri jihad in Iraq is not going well. Down mainly to the Awakening movement, which started when the Sunni tribes tired of the sectarian bloodshed, indiscriminate murder and imposition of the most harsh and ridiculous interpretation of Sharia law rose against the Islamic State of Iraq (formerly al-Qaida in Iraq and the Mujahideen Shura Council) and it...

There has been credible information coming out of Iraq for at least a couple of years that a purge of gays in Iraq is underway; now there are reports that Iraq is to execute 128 prisoners soon, in batches of 20 starting this week.(thru Miami Herald blog and Iraq LGBT blog)This report in 2006 from Amnesty International called on the Iraqi authorities to investigate thoroughly what is going on (

There have been many false dawns in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, none more so than the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, although the group was more properly known as the Mujahideen Shura Council at the time. Although the insurgency in Iraq was always far more varied than just involving Zarqawi's group, which was renamed al-Qaida in Iraq after he pledged allegi...

Outlining a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, Gordon Brown has said British troops will "leave Iraq a better place".

British troops are no longer needed in southern Iraq, according to prime minister Nouri al-Maliki.

British troops will exit Iraq by the middle of next year, Gordon Brown has announced in an unexpected visit to Iraq.

Britain's war in Iraq will end by this time next year, a highly placed defence source said yesterday. But asked whether the pullout from Iraq would mean reinforcements being sent to combat a resurgent Taliban, the senior officer responded: "Emphatically no. We have already mortgaged the Iraq dividend by boosting our force in Afghanistan to 8,000. That is the limit."

With British troops on their way home from Basra, it is appropriate now to consider how we should commemorate those who have died in Iraq (British operations in Iraq come to an end, 1 May). The official war artist for Iraq, Steve McQueen - who spent six days with troops in Basra in 2003 - came back with the moving and powerful idea that British servicemen and women killed in the conflict should be...