BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The air still smelled unmistakably of blood and the street was still strewn with shredded store mannequins and clothes.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Nine Kurdish troops were killed when suspected al Qaeda gunmen attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint in Diyala province north of Baghdad on Thursday, police said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq will have to cut food rations in 2008 because of insufficient funds, Trade Minister Abdul Falah al-Sudany said.

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) – Eight Kurdish Peshmerga troops and three militant gunmen were killed in a battle northeast of Baghdad on Thursday, a spokesman for the Kurdish forces said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Ear, nose and throat specialist Abu Samir laments that he has only one colleague left to call after an exodus that has robbed Iraq of about 70 percent of its most qualified doctors.

GENEVA (Reuters) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Thursday it had carried out its first visit to security detainees held by Iraq’s central government.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Treasury Department on Thursday put seven people it said were backing the Iraqi insurgency from Syria on a list that forbids U.S. citizens from having any dealings with them.

GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian in the Gaza Strip on Friday, local medical workers said.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Head of Iran’s Judiciary Ayatollah Seyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi met with the visiting head of Sierra Leon’s Supreme Court here on Thursday.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- The Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan resolved their border disputes in a meeting attended by the two sides border officials in Iran’s northwestern city of Astara Thursday night.