The U.S. may be able to reduce combat forces in Iraq by next spring if Iraq's own security forces continue to grow and improve, a senior American commander said Friday. He denied reports the U.S. is arming Sunni insurgent groups to help in the fight against al-Qaida.
The major U.S. offensive launched last weekend against insurgents in and around Baghdad has significantly expanded the military's battleground in Iraq -- "a surge of operations," and no longer just of troops, as the second-ranking U.S. commander there said yesterday -- but it has renewed concerns...
The U.S. may be able to reduce combat forces in Iraq by next spring, if Iraq's own security forces continue to grow and improve, a senior American commander said Friday. He denied reports that the U.S. is arming Sunni insurgent groups to help in the fight against al-Qaeda.
As of Friday, June 22, 2007, at least 3,547 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 2,903 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.
Britain's next prime minister Gordon Brown apologised for mistakes in intelligence made in the run-up to the Iraq war in a BBC television interview Friday.
The United States and Britain have circulated a draft resolution in the Security Council that would immediately terminate the work of UN inspectors tasked with monitoring and dismantling Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
U.S. and Iraqi troops killed at least 68 al Qaeda militants in Iraq's Diyala province in the past four days, the U.S. military reported on Friday.
A top US commander said Friday there was a "good potential" to start reducing US troop levels in Iraq early next year after the full force of a military surge is brought to bear against insurgents.
It could be next spring before U.S. troops in Iraq can hand over areas gained in their latest offensive to Iraqi forces and start to draw down, a top American commander said on Friday.
US helicopters fired missiles at suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen in Iraq on Friday, killing 17 in a widening operation northeast of Baghdad aimed at dislodging them.