Iraq said on Friday it regretted the decision by a US judge to dismiss criminal charges against five Blackwater security guards accused of fatally shooting 14 people in Baghdad in September 2007. "The Iraqi government regrets the decision of a federal judge in the United States to drop the charges against the Blackwater security guards," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said ...

Iraq on Tuesday ordered its ambassador to Damascus to return home and demanded that Syria hand over two senior Baathist leaders alleged to have ordered last week's deadly truck bombings in Baghdad. "The cabinet demands the Syrian government hand over Mohammed Younis al-Ahmed and Sattam Farhan," said a statement quoting Iraqi government spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh, announcing the ambassador's ...

Iraq's cabinet has approved a draft of the war-torn country's first laws to restrict smoking and to halt cigarette advertising, the government said on Thursday. The draft aims to bring to an end a laissez-faire attitude to cigarette smoking that endured through the totalitarian dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and years of fighting since the 2003 US-led invasion ...