Anbar Province

RAMADI, Iraq -- A group of Sunni tribal leaders in Iraq's beleaguered Anbar province said yesterday that they intend to form a national party to oppose such insurgent groups as al-Qaida in Iraq and to re-engage in Iraq's political process. The announcement came after 200 sheiks said to represent 50 tribes met here and agreed to form a provincial sheiks council and hold the first convention next month of their new party, called Iraq Awakening. Sheiks from three other provinces will attend, organizers said.

Baltimore will be host for global trade shows The Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association has booked a global trade show for travel planners that will generate an estimated $15 million in spending and 50,000 hotel room night bookings over five years, the convention agency said yesterday. The Americas Incentive, Business Travel and Meetings Exhibition, which will hold its inaugural event in Baltimore from June 29 to July 1, 2010, and each summer through 2014, is expected to bring 3,000 attendees annually and boost the city's reputation as an international convention destination, BACVA said.

BAGHDAD -- The managing editor of a government-run newspaper launched with U.S. funding after the fall of Saddam Hussein was found dead yesterday, the 85th Iraqi journalist to be killed since the war began. The body of Filaih Wadi Mijthab of the daily Al Sabah was found in Baghdad on the day that a four-day-old curfew imposed after the bombing of a Shiite Muslim mosque in Samarra was lifted. Five unidentified bodies were found yesterday. Mijthab was kidnapped Wednesday by gunmen who intercepted his vehicle as he drove to work.

BAGHDAD -- Sunni militants launched deadly attacks around Iraq yesterday as a suicide truck bomb killed two U.S. Marines and 10 Iraqis in Anbar province, a female bomber struck a police station in eastern Iraq and a car bomb exploded in Baghdad near a well-known restaurant. Confrontations once more jolted Sadr City, the capital's Shiite slum, where the U.S. military said its forces fired a Hellfire missile that hit a car carrying militants and rockets. Police said the strike killed eight civilians, but the Americans said no civilians were in the area.

McCain, a likely Republican candidate for president, was speaking during a visit to Iraq last week. He said he recognized the political danger of his call, with which many Americans disagree. ?I believe there is still a compelling reason to have an increase in troops here in Baghdad and in Anbar province in order to bring the sectarian violence under control [and to] allow the political process to proceed.? , --Sen. John McCain

As of Thursday, at least 2,557 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003. Identifications Lance Cpl. Geofrey R. Cayer, 20, Fitchburg, Mass.; died Tuesday in Anbar province during a nonhostile incident; assigned to 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif. Sgt. Mark R. Vecchione, 25, Tucson, Ariz.; died Tuesday in Ramadi when an explosive detonated near his vehicle; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment, 1st Armored Division, Friedberg, Germany.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The U.S. military announced the deaths of five more American troops in Iraq yesterday. Meanwhile, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq purportedly issued a taunting audiotape urging the Bush administration to "stay on the battleground" so that more American troops will be killed. Two U.S. soldiers died when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb early Thursday afternoon in west Baghdad, officials said. In separate attacks in Anbar province on Thursday, a Marine died in combat, and a soldier was killed and another wounded by a roadside bomb west of Haditha.

WASHINGTON -- If things go according to plan in Fallujah, the United States will defeat the insurgents in about a week. But winning the military action is only part of the story. As in Vietnam, if the interim Iraqi government cannot win the political battle, a U.S. victory in the military battle will be irrelevant. The political battle of Fallujah will be very different from the military one. It will be fought over several months, not days or weeks. It will extend far beyond the bounds of the city of Fallujah.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Pentagon hopes to make substantial reductions in U.S. troop levels in Iraq this year appear to be fading as a result of resurgent violence in the country, particularly in the Sunni Arab stronghold of Anbar province, military officials acknowledge. Army Gen. George W. Casey, commander of coalition forces in Iraq, said yesterday that he was moving 1,500 troops that had been held in Kuwait as a backup to Anbar, the restive western region that includes the war-torn cities of Fallujah and Ramadi.

WORLD 2,000 Marines to Anbar province About 2,000 combat Marines are on their way to Iraq's violent Anbar province to reinforce U.S. troops, dispatched there by Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, who warned a skeptical Congress against a phased withdrawal of American combat forces. pg 1a Iran is uneasy over Iraq Iran has consistently opposed the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq, but prospects of a stepped-up American withdrawal are prompting growing unease in the Islamic republic.

BAGHDAD -- The leader of Iraq's largest Shiite political party said yesterday that the neighborhood patrols credited with calming many Sunni areas must submit to government authority and include a broader sectarian mix. The comments by the political leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, reflected growing resistance among many Shiites to the neighborhood groups, also known as Awakening Councils, which are almost exclusively...

Progress in Iraq will prove fleeting Reports of "progress" in Iraq - and really, the claim is about progress in one province - deserve our skepticism ("`Uneven' progress in Iraq," Sept. 11). Here's what some of the approximately $3 billion per week the United States is spending on the war in Iraq is doing: We are now giving money and military aid to Sunni militias who were insurgents. In return, they have done two things: First, they have forced many of the Shiites out of Anbar province, and second, they are fighting al-Qaida.

BAGHDAD -- Missiles and mortar shells struck areas of Baghdad and central Iraq yesterday where violence and civilian deaths had decreased in recent weeks, raising concerns that insurgents were adapting their strategy to get around an increase in U.S. troops. At least 14 Iraqis were killed, including seven in a mortar barrage aimed at a Shiite residential area north of Baghdad in the town of Khalis. Car bombs killed four people in Kirkuk, where a policeman was shot to death earlier in the day, and two were killed in a missile attack on a farming village near Ramadi.

WASHINGTON -- Intent on demonstrating progress, the top U.S. commander in Iraq is expected by senior Bush administration officials to recommend removing American troops soon from several areas, possibly including Anbar province. According to the officials, Gen. David Petraeus is expected to propose the partial pullback in his September status report to Congress. Administration officials who support the current troop buildup hope Petraeus' recommendations will persuade Congress to reject pressure for a major U.S. withdrawal.

BAGHDAD -- The managing editor of a government-run newspaper launched with U.S. funding after the fall of Saddam Hussein was found dead yesterday, the 85th Iraqi journalist to be killed since the war began. The body of Filaih Wadi Mijthab of the daily Al Sabah was found in Baghdad on the day that a four-day-old curfew imposed after the bombing of a Shiite Muslim mosque in Samarra was lifted. Five unidentified bodies were found yesterday. Mijthab was kidnapped Wednesday by gunmen who intercepted his vehicle as he drove to work.

ANBAR PROVINCE, Iraq -- Once the most violence-racked region of Iraq, much of Anbar has become a relatively peaceful haven, ripe for the kind of economic development and political reform that has been the most noble and pressing U.S. goal for the nation it invaded four years ago. About 200 local Iraqi leaders in the dusty Euphrates River towns that stretch more than a hundred miles west of Baghdad have thrown in their lot with U.S.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Suicide bombers, roadside explosions and mortar rounds killed at least 99 Iraqis and wounded 26 across the country yesterday. The U.S. military also announced that three American troops had been killed in Al Anbar province on Tuesday. In downtown Baghdad, Iraqi and U.S. soldiers continued to search out suspected rebels in the largely Sunni Arab Haifa Street neighborhood, making 15 arrests in the second day of an offensive against insurgents there, Iraqi officials said.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Suicide bombers sent another chilling message to Sunni tribal leaders who have rebuffed al-Qaida, blowing up three trucks loaded with chlorine-laden explosives in Anbar province, the military said yesterday. At least two people were killed, and more than 350 were sickened by the noxious clouds, including seven U.S. troops. Since January, suspected Sunni insurgents have waged six attacks involving a combination of explosive devices and chlorine, killing a total of 26 people.

BAGHDAD -- The friends and family of slain Fallujah tribal leader Alawi Ahmed Zuwaid decided to ignore a threatening leaflet and honor him yesterday with a public funeral. The mourners were hit with the most deadly bombing of the day in Iraq. As the funeral procession moved through Fallujah, a suicide car bomber attacked the mourners, killing 30 people and injuring 34, authorities said. They were among at least 67 Iraqis killed or found dead yesterday. The U.S. military said two soldiers were killed Wednesday in Anbar province during combat operations.

RAMADI, Iraq -- A group of Sunni tribal leaders in Iraq's beleaguered Anbar province said yesterday that they intend to form a national party to oppose such insurgent groups as al-Qaida in Iraq and to re-engage in Iraq's political process. The announcement came after 200 sheiks said to represent 50 tribes met here and agreed to form a provincial sheiks council and hold the first convention next month of their new party, called Iraq Awakening. Sheiks from three other provinces will attend, organizers said.