Iraq

ABC News is scaling back its presence in Iraq and will rely on BBC News for daily coverage of developments there. "By working more closely with the BBC, we will increase our capabilities in Iraq and the region, while at the same time freeing our people and resources to concentrate on the unique reporting that our audiences value so highly," ABC News President David Westin wrote in a memo to employees Wednesday. The two networks have a long-standing relationship in which they share content.

They are known as the "men of the night." The rugged group sits in front of a liquor store in the northern foothills of Iraq, swapping stories and glasses of whiskey as their horses munch nearby. As dusk approaches, they begin strapping heavy cartons onto their animals for the long journey ahead. Their cargo: bottles of vodka and Scotch destined for Iran. Trade has flourished between the two regions for centuries. Some of it is legitimate, some of it not. In the ethnic Kurdish enclaves on either side of the border, many livelihoods are built on the illicit flow of alcohol, cigarettes and other contraband into Iran.

One passage plucked from the New Testament's Epistle to the Ephesians instructs believers to "put on the full armor of God." An excerpt from the Old Testament's Isaiah directs them to "open the gates that the righteous nation may enter." As American troops fought in Iraq in 2003, these biblical verses and others reportedly prefaced intelligence reports approved by then-Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.

A military appeals court Tuesday upheld the dismissal of war crimes charges against Marine Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, the highest-ranking Marine charged in the 2005 killing of 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq.

Far from the prestigious windowed offices on the outer ring of the Pentagon, a new war room focusing entirely on the conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan sits deep inside a cavernous basement. Created by Navy Adm. Michael G. Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Pakistan Afghanistan Coordination Cell is intended to bring together the Pentagon's top strategy and intelligence experts. The cell is also a visible symbol of how much the related conflicts have become Mullen's war.

Unarmed Kurdish rebels in combat dress marched into Turkey from northern Iraq on Monday in a show of support for peace with the Turkish government. The eight rebels, along with 26 other Kurds, were immediately detained by Turkish paramilitary police after crossing the border gate at Habur. They were moved to a military battalion's headquarters for questioning by prosecutors, the state-run Anatolian news agency reported. Earlier, Kurds in northern Iraq celebrated with music and drums as the group left from a refugee camp, the news agency reported.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is not likely to seek another term when his mandate expires at the end of this year, a senior official of his party said Saturday. But Talabani, 75, who underwent heart surgery last year in the United States, will remain head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, said Fuad Masoum, head of the Kurdish alliance and a member of parliament. "It doesn't mean he will give up his political life. It just means he will not go for the presidential post," Masoum said.

Iraq and the United States, at odds for decades over the gravest matters of war and peace, have a new point of conflict: a humble travel bulletin. During Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's recent visit to Washington, Iraqi officials complained to senior U.S. officials that the State Department's advisory for American travelers was painting too dark a picture of Iraq and scaring away U.S. investment, Samir Shakir Mahmoud Sumaidy, Iraq's ambassador to the U.S., told reporters Friday.

Raheem's cellphone rang as we walked through a crowded market, stepping over piles of trash and weaving around slow-moving donkey carts. He spoke to the caller in his usual low murmur, then hung up. It was a U.S. immigration official, he told me. His application for refugee status in America had been approved. The flight was nine days away. "What do you think?" he asked, as calmly as if inviting my opinion on a new shirt.

The general with the easy smile has been here before. A little over a decade ago, Saddam Hussein dispatched him to this province where the oil wells belch orange flames day and night. Now another Iraqi Arab leader has sent him north, in a battle of wills over Kirkuk that has awakened the past and raised fear of new fighting in the territory that the Kurds consider their Jerusalem.