Casualty Count

Family members tell us U.S. Army Specialist Matthew McCool, a Tehachapi native, was seriously hurt during an explosion while on a mission Thursday night. McCool was hit by shrapnel in the head and was airlifted to a green zone hospital in Baghdad.

The Ministry of Defence is to admit that its troops tortured and breached the human rights of nine Iraqi men they detained in southern Iraq in 2003, opening the way to potentially large compensation claims.

Iraqi and US forces found 37 bodies in a mass grave uncovered in the restive province of Diyala, northeast of Baghdad, on Thursday, a US military statement said. The grave was found near the town of Muqdadiyah in the province...

An Interior Ministry official says the civilian spokesman for the Baghdad security operation has been kidnapped and three bodyguards killed. Tahseen Sheikhly is a Sunni who often appeared with U.S. military and embassy officials at news...

Nine people were killed and 95 others wounded in clashes between Iraqi security forces and Mehdi Army members in different parts of Baghdad, said Major-General Qassim Moussawi, spokesman for Iraqi security forces in Baghdad.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is promising to pursue his fight against Shiite militias in Basra to "the end." Al-Maliki made his pledge to Basra area tribal leaders Thursday as military operations against the militias continued for a fourth day...

Authorities identified the remains of two more U.S. contractors kidnapped in Iraq and are awaiting forensic testing on remains of a third body...FBI spokesman...identified the two men as Paul Johnson-Reuben of Minneapolis and Joshua Munns of Redding...

One of southern Iraq's two main oil export pipelines has been severely damaged in a bomb attack, officials said today. The bombing of the pipeline, seven miles south of Basra, came as clashes between Iraqi security forces...

Shiite militants are hammering the U.S.-protected Green Zone today with rockets and mortars for the fourth day this week. Thick, black smoke is billowing from inside the heavily fortified home to the U.S. Embassy and Iraqi government.

Thousands of supporters of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr marched in Baghdad on Thursday to protest against a three-day-old crackdown against his followers and call for the downfall of the U.S.-backed government.

Pvt. George Delgado, 21, of Palmdale, Calif...assigned to the 4th Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division...died March 24 in Baghdad...from wounds suffered when their vehicle encountered an IDE on March 23.

Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, yesterday gave Shia militia and other gunmen a 72-hour deadline to surrender their weapons as his forces engaged in fierce street battles in the southern city of Basra for the second day running.

U.S. aircraft supporting an Iraqi government offensive against Shiite Muslim militias bombed suspected militia positions south of Baghdad amid intense fighting Wednesday in parts of the Iraqi capital and in the southern port city of Basra...

U.S. troops in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood in southwest Baghdad are seeing sporadic and unusual attacks by a Sadr-backed militia against Iraqi forces. The attacks represent a turn-around for the militia, which was once working...

Intense negotiations are under way to end fighting between Shiite militiamen and Iraqi forces in the southern oil hub of Basra and in Baghdad. Iraq's prime minister has given gunmen in Basra three days to hand over their weapons.

The Major Crimes Task Force is Iraq's first professional investigative agency. It takes on the politically explosive cases no one else will touch — and what some members of the task force have learned has put their lives in jeopardy.

It's hard for Army Specialist Jason Kvasnak to remember every single explosion he survived in Iraq. "We were in several IED...blasts throughout the tour," Kvasnak said. But Kvasnak remember the one that left him with the injuries no one saw coming.

The Pentagon on Wednesday said an eruption of violence in southern Iraq, where US-backed government forces were battling Shiite militias, was a "by-product of the success of the surge."

Many people were killed or wounded by a U.S. air strike called to support Iraqi forces in the town of Hilla south of Baghdad on Wednesday, Iraqi security sources said...ne police source said at least 11 people were killed and 18 wounded

BAGHDAD – A Multi-National Division – Baghdad Soldier was killed by hostile fire in eastern Baghdad at approximately 4:30 p.m. March 26.