Summary: A suicide car bomber targeting an American convoy exploded about 200 yards outside the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, killing at least four Afghan bystanders. … Iraq’s parliament approved a security pact with the United States that lets American troops stay in the country for three more years.

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Summary: In an exodus that began after the 1991 Gulf War, and escalated dramatically after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, Iraq has lost more than half its Christian population of some 1 million. … In the third such shooting in the Mosul area in less than a year, two U.S. troops were killed when a gunman in an Iraqi army uniform opened fire while they were distributing humanitarian aid in northern Iraq.

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Summary: KBR, a contractor providing services to the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan, has committed serious violations of its contract, mainly by conducting inadequate inspections of electrical wiring and grounding at American bases. The Pentagon findings stem from the death of Sgt. Ryan Maseth, a highly decorated 24-year-old Green Beret from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who was electrocuted on January 2, 2008 while taking a shower at his base in Baghdad.

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Summary: A female suicide bomber blew herself up near an entrance to the U.S.-protected Green Zone and a bomb tore through a minibus carrying Iraqi government employees in separate attacks in Iraq, killing at least 20 people.

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Summary: Followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr stomped on and burned an effigy of President George Bush in the same central Baghdad square where Iraqis beat a toppled statue of Saddam Hussein with their sandals five years earlier. Chanting and waving flags, thousands of Iraqis filled Firdous Square to protest a proposed U.S.-Iraqi security pact that would allow American troops to stay for three more years.

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Summary: Iran praised the Iraqi Cabinet for approving a U.S-Iraq status-of-forces agreement. … Michael Hanna, an analyst at the Century Foundation in New York, said a continuing but finite presence of U.S. troops in Iraq could benefit Iran because it provides “retaliatory options” as Tehran pursues a nuclear program opposed by the West.

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Summary: Adm. Chris Barrie, former chief of the Australian Defense Force, has said there was no evidence to justify going to war in Iraq in 2003: “I have to say, even up until the day I retired, I never saw any evidence that said suddenly we had to go off and do a job in Iraq.” … Two U.S. soldiers were killed in an OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopter crash in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. … A car bomb killed 10 people and wounded 30 in the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar.

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Summary: An Associated Press tally showed at least 26 deadly bombings in Baghdad in the first half of November 2008, compared with 28 for all of October and 22 in September. At least 102 people were killed in the Iraqi capital in the first half of November 2008, compared with 95 in October and 96 in September, according to the AP count.

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Summary: In Mosul, an Iraqi soldier fired automatic weapons at U.S. soldiers at a military base, killing two and wounding six before he died in a hail of bullets. … In Baghdad, bombers struck the capital for a third straight day, killing 23 people and wounding scores in a string of attacks in mostly Shiite areas. … In Kandahar, Afghanistan, a suicide bomber driving an oil tanker detonated his explosives outside an Afghan government office during a provincial council meeting, killing at least six people and wounding 42. … Iran test-fired a solid-fuel, high-speed Sajjil long-range surface-to-surface missile with a range of about 1,200 miles. … North Korea announced it will shut the country’s border with the South on Dec. 1, 2008.

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Summary: 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the pendulum in Mosul has swung several times between stark violence and fragile security, and 2008 is no different. Last November, when the American regiment arrived, the city’s western half was “entirely enemy territory,” with other areas not much better, says Maj. John Oliver, operations officer of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment’s 3rd Squadron. … A series of blasts struck Baghdad for the third consecutive day, killing nine people and wounding more than 30 others. … Taliban fighters hijacked trucks carrying Humvees and other supplies for U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan, authorities said after a brazen attack near the Khyber Pass that underscored the militants’ grip across key mountain strongholds.

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