What's Happening in Iraq

Reuters - Saudi King Abdullah, head of the most influential Sunni nation in the Middle East, held talks on Saturday with former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi who leads a secular Sunni-Shi'ite coalition into parliamentary elections.

AFP - A major Sunni bloc on Saturday withdrew from Iraq's March 7 general election in protest against Iranian interference it said was damaging the ballot and urged other parties to join the boycott.

AP - A top Sunni Arab lawmaker banned from running in Iraq's March 7 election withdrew his entire party from the campaign Saturday and called on other groups to join the boycott, a move that threatened to undermine the credibility of the vote and raise sectarian tensions.

AP - With tempers high ahead of Iraq's national elections next month, even tearing down a campaign poster is a flash point between Sunnis and Shiites.

AFP - Iraqi police said they found a Christian shopkeeper shot to death in the restive northern city of Mosul on Saturday, the fifth Christian killing in a week thought to be related to March elections.

AP - Robin De Haven was driving the company truck to a job when he saw something that didn't look right — a small plane, flying extremely low over a heavily congested area of Austin.

AFP - Electoral authorities on Friday imposed a curfew on campaigning in a northern Iraqi province that has become a fierce battleground for Kurdish votes ahead of the country's general election.

AFP - All 600 detainees at a prison in Iraq's southern city of Basra have gone on hunger strike to protest conditions that are "not fit for animals," a local politician said on Friday.

AFP - President Barack Obama's administration plans to rebrand its military operation in Iraq "Operation New Dawn," beginning September 1, a Pentagon memorandum shows.

AFP - A suicide bomber killed 10 people, including four policemen and a young girl, near local government offices in western Iraq on Thursday, as violence engulfed other areas ahead of elections.

Reuters - A suicide bomber killed at least 11 people and wounded 21 on Thursday in Iraq's increasingly turbulent western Anbar province, a senior Iraqi army official and police said.

AFP - A car bomb near a police station in the centre of Iraq's main northern city of Mosul wounded 22 people including 15 police, security and medical officials told AFP on Thursday.

AFP - At least 10 people were killed, including four policemen and a young girl, as a suicide car bomb struck a checkpoint near local government offices in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi on Thursday, a hospital official said.

AFP - The United States is on track to pull out troops from Iraq regardless of the outcome of the upcoming elections, which could lead to a lengthy transition of power, the US ambassador has said.