(AP) - EDITOR'S NOTE: Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. This report is based on the accounts of witnesses reached in Iran and official statements carried on Iranian media.

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A powerful ...

BAGHDAD (AP) - Vice President Joe Biden pressed Iraqi leaders Friday to do more to foster national reconciliation and offered U.S. assistance in achieving that, as concerns grow that a lack of political progress is fueling violence in Iraq.

He stressed that America wanted to "build up" its partnership with Iraqi l...

AP (AP) - _ Top Iranian cleric: Some British Embassy staff will be put on trial.

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(AP) - As of Friday, July 3, 2009, at least 4,322 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The figure includes nine military civilians killed in action. At least 3,456 military personnel died as a result of hostile action, a...

BEIRUT (AP) - Syria's leader sent a July 4 message full of praise to President Barack Obama on Friday and invited him to visit Syria _ the latest signs Damascus is hedging its bets in Mideast politics, warming up to its rival the United States at a time when its longtime ally Iran is in turmoil.

The United States...

JERUSALEM (AP) - Most members of a group of foreign peace activists seized at sea by the Israeli navy remained in custody Friday, three days after their failed attempt to run Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, relatives and supporters said.

In the latest attempt by activists to break a crippling two-year blockade ...

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' security forces have significantly widened a crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank in the past month. They have doubled the number of detainees and are increasingly targeting the wives of activists, school teachers and others on the fringes of the Islamic militant ...

BAGHDAD (AP) - After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein stayed in Baghdad until he saw "the city was about to fall." Months later, he was caught hiding at the same farm where he had fled in 1959 after taking part in an attempt to kill the country's prime minister.

Unclassified FBI interviews conducted durin...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House says Vice President Joe Biden is in Iraq.

He's there to visit U.S. troops and meet with Iraqi leaders, including President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Biden headed to Iraq the same week as U.S. troops handed over security in cities and urban areas to Iraqis.

Th...

NAJAF, Iraq (AP) - There is no place outside Iran that has closer links to Tehran's ruling establishment than Iraq's holy Shiite city of Najaf, where the silence during Iran's post-election crisis says much about the deep complexities of their cross-border bonds.

"Simply put, the whole affair does not concern Najaf," ...