Baghdad

A soldier from Baltimore was killed by enemy fire while on patrol in Baghdad last week, the Department of Defense announced yesterday. Staff Sgt. Marlon B. Harper, 34, died Saturday from wounds he suffered from a rocket-propelled grenade and small-arms fire while on patrol, the Army said in a news release. Sergeant Harper was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, based at Fort Hood, Texas. Sergeant Harper, who joined the military in 1993 as an armor crew member, apparently lived in apartments in the Tuscany-Canterbury and Brooklyn sections of Baltimore as recently as 1999, according to public records.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Insurgent and sectarian attacks in the capital have shot up during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting and atonement, according to U.S. military statistics released yesterday. Since the beginning of the holiday more than two weeks ago, there have been an average of 36 violent incidents daily. That compares with about 28 a day since mid-June, when U.S. and Iraqi security forces began a high-profile security crackdown designed to stem violence between Sunni Arab and Shiite Muslims.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. Marines launched airstrikes in western Iraq yesterday, killing 40 suspected insurgents, while a wave of shootings and bombings in the Baghdad region left at least 30 Iraqis dead. Insurgents set off three bombs in Baghdad in less than 18 hours Friday and yesterday, including a blast aimed at the heart of Iraq's security apparatus. The U.S. military announced that two Marines assigned to the 2nd Marine Division were killed Friday near the western Iraqi town of Saqlawiyah when a booby-trapped bomb exploded near their vehicle.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Teenage boys were playing soccer on the grassy parkland along Abu Nawas Street on Friday. A few parents were strolling the street gesturing to their young children as they gazed out over the Tigris River. Abu Nawas Street was once a famous haunt lined by gardens and popular fish restaurants. But as of six months ago, it was a garbage-strewn strip bisected by 12-foot concrete blast barriers. Six months ago, when I was last in Baghdad, few cars ventured out on a Friday.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- In the stately French Embassy, the paper shredder had stopped for a moment.At the Canadian Embassy, Ambassador Christopher Poole pondered whether it was worth a long and dangerous drive through the desert to haul classified communications equipment out of Baghdad.At the U.S. Embassy, the chief diplomat, Thomas C. Wilson, waited in a florid purple necktie and alligator-skin shoes for the final orders to fly out of Iraq tomorrow morning.And at another embassy, a blond, red-cheeked Western woman wondered what would become of her Iraqi-soldier husband and her two children when the war started.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- I tagged along the other day with Bernard Kerik, the dynamo former New York City police chief who is in Baghdad retraining the Iraqi cops. We sat in on a class where a U.S. police trainer and his translator were going through the basics of how to start an interrogation. The Iraqi policemen, who four months ago thought removing a suspect's fingernails was how to start an interrogation, dutifully took notes in their U.S.-provided notebooks. What struck me most, though, was the new "mission statement" for the Iraqi police, posted next to the blackboard in English and Arabic.

Bob Simon's hour-long report from the Middle East might come as a cold splash of water at the end of a Fourth of July heated to feverish levels by the welcome home of Desert Storm troops.Simon, you might recall, is the CBS newsman who was, along with his camera crew, captured by Iraqi troops, imprisoned, questioned and beaten during 40 days of captivity in Baghdad.Indeed, from the haunted look on his face when he emerged from captivity, you'd think the guy would never want to set foot in that country again.

THE FOG COMES in at night, shrouding this city of 4 million souls. The dogs of Baghdad, in their confusion and fear, come awake in the fog and howl into the night.It is after midnight, I am awake and can't go back to sleep. I phone a reporter whom I know here, who I know will be awake also.I ask her to tell me what news she's heard in the last few hours. After she tells me, I don't go back to sleep. I go to look for a church.In this city of 4 million souls, some 400,000 of them are Christian.

AMMAN, Jordan -- The tall, gaunt man sat nervously fingering a rosary in the Baghdad airport, waiting for what he feared would be the last flight out before war.Beside him was a small, worn canvas bag with all that he owned. And two scuffed squash rackets.He had not chosen this last moment to leave Baghdad, he said hesitantly. His British accent barely audible, he explained he could not go earlier. He was in jail.He was the last Western hostage to leave Iraq.Patrick Trigg was held for 120 days of solitary confinement and interrogation after he was caught trying to escape across the border.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S.-led occupation plans to shift control of this war-stricken city center to Iraqi forces soon and move most American troops to the capital's perimeter, military officials said yesterday. "Unless you give them a chance to practice their skills to go out there and face things on their own, then you never know what they can do," said Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who was visiting Baghdad for the third time since the war began. "But clearly it's better for us if they are on the front lines, and it's better for them, and it's better for their country."