Summary: Between 8,300 and 9,000 civilians were killed in Iraq in 2008, bringing the total number of civilian deaths since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 to at least 98,400, according to Iraq Body Count.

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Summary: From Basra in the south to Irbil in the north, Iraqi activists are trying to counter the rising influence of religious fundamentalists and tribal chieftains who have insisted that women wear the veil, prevented girls from receiving education and sanctioned killings of women accused of besmirching their family’s honor.

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Summary: On a valedictory tour prior to leaving office, President George W. Bush has admitted to a few previously unacknowledged errors, telling one interviewer that he was “unprepared for war” when he entered office and that his “biggest regret” was the failure of intelligence leading up to the Iraq invasion.

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Summary: With the number of terrorist attacks against police increasing from 113 in 2005 to 1,820 in 2007, police in northwestern Pakistan’s tribal regions bordering Afghanistan are outgunned, out-financed, and fighting a losing battle against Taliban insurgents.

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Summary: A series of bombs struck U.S. and Iraqi security forces in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul, killing at least 33 people and wounding dozens, including four U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi general. … Ivan Watson, an American reporter for National Public Radio, and three Iraqi colleagues escaped injury when a bomb attached to their car exploded as it was parked along a street in west Baghdad. … South Korea started withdrawing its troops from Iraq ahead of the Dec. 31, 2008 expiration of the U.N. mandate that authorized military operations in 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: 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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