Baghdad

The House of Wisdom By Jonathan Lyons Bloomsbury / 272 pages / $26 Dust will never gather on Jonathan Lyons' lively new book of medieval history - the opening page of his The House of Wisdom cites a cleric scandalized by the Crusader ladies of Antioch and their penchant for the plunging neckline and the bejeweled merkin. If this is the Middle Ages, thinks the reader, bring it on! But this pleasure gradually gives way to another beguilement, to be found in Lyons' subtitle: "How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization."

BAGHDAD -- Gunmen killed an aide to Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in the southern city of Basra, police said yesterday, the latest in a string of attacks targeting associates of Iraq's leading Shiite cleric. Also, civilian deaths rose in August to their second-highest monthly level this year, but American combat deaths in Iraq have dropped by half in the three months since the buildup of 28,000 additional U.S. troops reached full strength. U.S. officials had predicted that the increase would lead to higher American casualties as the troops "took the fight to the enemy."

BAGHDAD -- After weeks of hesitation, Iran announced yesterday that it would attend a conference this week in Egypt that is intended as a forum for Iraq's neighbors -- along with the United Nations, the United States and other world powers -- to establish a regional consensus on ways to stabilize Iraq. Without Iran, Iraq's largest and most influential neighbor, it is unlikely that any serious progress could have been made. Topping the American agenda for the meeting is the U.S. allegation that Iran is helping fuel the violence in Iraq by facilitating the supply of weapons, money and sophisticated bomb-making techniques to insurgents.

BAGHDAD -- The wails of mourners reverberated yesterday across the Shiite Muslim city of Amarah, still reeling from three car bombs that ripped through its main market the previous day. The provincial Health Department lowered the death toll from 41 to 28, citing confusion in the immediate aftermath of the first major bombing to hit the southern city during the Iraq war. At the same time, the estimate of the number of injured grew to at least 180, said...

BAGHDAD -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki refused to accept the resignations of six Cabinet members yesterday, keeping the door open for a possible return of Sunni ministers whose departure last week caused a crisis in his unity government. Members of the Sunni bloc known as the Iraqi Accordance Front, or Tawafiq, said al-Maliki's action would not affect their decision. But a senior member held out the possibility that a resolution could be reached at an upcoming summit of leaders of Iraq's main ethnic and religious blocs.

BAGHDAD -- A suicide bomber edged into a crowd of Iraqi officials and U.S. forces gathered for a meeting north of Baghdad yesterday, killing as many as 12 people, including an American soldier. It was one of three attacks nationwide that shattered the peaceful start of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, which began Wednesday for Sunni Muslims. Shiites begin celebrating the four-day holiday today. The violence underscored what a U.S. official called the "great security threats" still looming in Iraq, threats illustrated by two recent discoveries.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Bombers and gunmen killed more than 110 Shiite Muslim pilgrims observing a religious ritual and wounded more than 250 others in scores of sectarian attacks yesterday that threatened to derail a renewed effort to stabilize Iraq. In the worst incident, two suicide bombers walking among the pilgrims in the southern city of Hilla detonated their explosive belts within two minutes of each other, killing at least 77 and injuring 127, according to local police. Around Baghdad, gunmen, car bombs and roadside bombs killed at least 35 and injured 137 others.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- In a symbolic victory for Iraq, representatives of neighboring countries and world powers are gathering here to discuss how they could help stabilize the troubled country. The meeting, scheduled for today, will be a rare opportunity for Iran and the United States to sit at the same table. Syria, another frequent target of American animosity, will be there, too. But at a practical level the meeting is most important for Iraq, a country teetering on the brink of chaos and in desperate need of help from all its neighbors.

BAGHDAD, Iraq --Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric and founder of the Mahdi Army militia, discovered recently that two of his commanders had created DVDs of their men killing Sunnis in Baghdad. Documents suggested that they had received money from Iran. So he suspended them and stripped them of power, said two Mahdi leaders in Sadr City, the heart of al-Sadr's support here in the capital. But did he do so as part of his cooperation with the new security plan for Baghdad, which aims to quell the sectarian violence tormenting the city?

BAGHDAD -- Seven inmates were killed yesterday when mortar shells slammed into an Iraqi Interior Ministry jail in the capital, Iraqi security officials said. A few miles south, fire broke out at one of Iraq's main oil refineries, a possible case of sabotage. There were conflicting reports about the cause of the blaze, but police said a Katyusha rocket hit a gas tanker. More than 450 attacks have been carried out against Iraq's oil installations or industry employees since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, according to analysts who monitor security issues related to energy.

Car bomb kills at least 27 in crowded Iraq market BAGHDAD - A car bomb exploded in a crowded outdoor market in the northern city of Kirkuk on Tuesday, killing at least 27 people, police said, a deadly reminder of the challenges facing the Iraqi government even as it celebrated the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from cities. The bombing marred what had otherwise been a festive day as Iraqis commemorated the newly declared National Sovereignty Day. It also came hours after four U.S. soldiers were killed in combat Monday in Baghdad.

BAGHDAD - -A bomb in a sprawling Shiite Muslim neighborhood killed at least 72 people and wounded more than 135 Wednesday, highlighting the danger that Iraq could slip into unrestrained violence after U.S. combat troops leave its cities - and with the deadline less than a week away. It was unclear who was responsible for detonating the bomb, which was hidden in a motorcycle with a vegetable cart. Some blamed Sunni insurgents from al-Qaida in Iraq or remnants of former dictator Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, but others suggested that the bombing was the result of disputes among Shiite factions.

BAGHDAD -Two bombers detonated suicide vests outside a gold-domed religious shrine Friday and killed at least 71 people, raising the toll in two days of attacks on Shiite Muslims in Iraq to 159 and reviving fears of a return to sectarian war. The attacks at the Imam Musa Khadimiyah shrine in northeast Baghdad raise concerns that the Sunni insurgency is regrouping just as U.S. forces are preparing to withdraw from Iraq's cities and President Barack Obama...

BAGHDAD -Six years after the U.S. overthrew Saddam Hussein's government, tens of thousands of Iraqis gathered in the rain in Iraq's capital Thursday to mark the anniversary and renew calls for a U.S. withdrawal. The demonstrators came in response to calls by Muqtada al-Sadr, the influential Shiite cleric who has long decried the U.S. military's occupation, but there were also Sunni Muslims in the crowd. Draped in Iraqi flags and chanting, protesters packed Baghdad's Firdous Square, where six years ago a crowd cheered the destruction of a statue of Hussein.

The House of Wisdom By Jonathan Lyons Bloomsbury / 272 pages / $26 Dust will never gather on Jonathan Lyons' lively new book of medieval history - the opening page of his The House of Wisdom cites a cleric scandalized by the Crusader ladies of Antioch and their penchant for the plunging neckline and the bejeweled merkin. If this is the Middle Ages, thinks the reader, bring it on! But this pleasure gradually gives way to another beguilement, to be found in Lyons' subtitle: "How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization."

BAGHDAD - "Long live Iraq," Muntather Zeidi declared in court , according to his lawyers, after a judge sentenced the improbable hero of Iraqi nationalists to three years in prison for hurling his shoes at former President George W. Bush. Outside the courtroom, his supporters and relatives erupted in jeers over the verdict for the journalist who gained international attention in December when at a news conference in Baghdad he called Bush a dog and lobbed his footwear at him. "This is an American court.

BAGHDAD -The jet left Baghdad and had just crossed the Euphrates River when it arced back toward the Iraqi capital yesterday. Upon landing at Baghdad's airport, a security guard boarded the plane and left with parliament member Mohammed al-Dayni. But al-Dayni's whereabouts are a mystery as the clamor over his alleged crimes, from murder to gold robberies, threatens to increase sectarian polarization in parliament. The guard who escorted al-Dayni, a Sunni Arab, off the plane was part of his security detail, as were the officers who drove away with him shortly before a nationwide manhunt began.

BAGHDAD - Two Iraqi policemen fired on four U.S. soldiers and two Iraqi interpreters inside a police station in the northern city of Mosul yesterday, the third deadly attack on American soldiers in two weeks in the still-volatile provinces of Nineveh and Diyala. One American soldier and one of the interpreters were killed, the U.S. military said. The three other soldiers and second interpreter were injured. An Iraqi police captain at the scene was also slightly injured, said police officials.

The recent provincial elections in Iraq confirmed the national identity of the Iraqi people. Voting overwhelmingly for nationalist candidates, Iraqis voted to keep Iraq together as one - an outcome that defies the predictions of many. Myths and distortions about Iraq's history have been used to promote arguments for a divided Iraq. Peter Galbraith, in an October op-ed in The New York Times, claimed that Iraq has an "absence of a shared identity ... [and] there was never shared national identity."

BAGHDAD - A young Sunni man strolling along the Tigris River hesitated when asked whom he had voted for in provincial elections yesterday. Then he gave an answer that would have seemed unthinkable during the depths of Iraq's bloody civil war: "Our prime minister" - the Shiite head of the government, Nouri al-Maliki. Along Haifa Street, where high-rises once served as shooting galleries for Sunni gunmen battling U.S. troops, another Sunni voter was coy about his choice but hinted that he, too, is pleased with the job al-Maliki has done.