Two suicide car bombers took aim at police stations in the former Sunni insurgent stronghold of Fallujah on Thursday, killing at least 10 people and wounding more than 100, Iraqi officials said.

International media watchdog groups called Wednesday for the release of a freelance journalist jailed in northern Iraq for violating a public decency law by writing a story about homosexuality.

The Christmas Spirit Foundation and the 375th Services Squadron at Scott Air Force Base will distribute free Christmas trees to service members and their families Thursday.

Sgt. Ryan Nyhus spent 14 months patrolling the deadly streets of Baghdad, where five members of his platoon were shot and one died. As bad as that was, he would rather go back there than take his chances in this brutal job market.

Iraq's president is going to the country's federal court to try to stop Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki from establishing tribal councils - a move that major political parties fear is aimed at bolstering the Shiite leader's stature ahead of elections next year.

Sgt. Ryan Nyhus spent 14 months patrolling the deadly streets of Baghdad, where five members of his platoon were shot and one died. As bad as that was, he would rather go back there than take his chances in this brutal job market.

About 1,000 Asian men who were hired by a Kuwaiti subcontractor to the U.S. military have been confined for as long as three months in windowless warehouses near the Baghdad airport without money or a place to work.

The Iraqi and Kuwaiti navies have agreed to patrol their common waterways together to guard against terrorism and smuggling in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy said Tuesday.

The U.S. military is urging Iraq's Shiite-led government to boost the number of Sunni volunteers - many of them ex-insurgents - into its security forces, a U.S. officer said Tuesday.

Iraqi police say at least one civilian has been killed and five others wounded when a bomb attached to a minibus exploded in eastern Baghdad.

Saddam Hussein's notorious cousin "Chemical Ali" Hassan al-Majid received a second death sentence Tuesday - this time for crushing a Shiite uprising in the wake of Iraq's defeat in the 1991 Gulf War.

As of Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2008, at least 4,207 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

As many as 38 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded Monday in multiple attacks across Iraq, including one in which a man detonated a suicide vest near a convoy of coalition vehicles in Mosul, killing up to 16.

U.S. TROOP LEVELS:

No one can fault the sentiment behind sending a holiday card to "A Recovering American Soldier." But don't do it.

A suicide bombing tore through a line of recruits waiting to enter a police academy as multiple blasts struck Iraqi security forces Monday, killing at least 33 people and wounding dozens including four U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi general.

Ground combat in the 1991 Persian Gulf War lasted just 100 hours, but it's meant 17 years of pain and anguish for hundreds of thousands of veterans.

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman says his country will fully back the U.S.-Iraq security pact if it's approved by Iraqis in a referendum next summer.

A South Korean general offered a wish for peace in Iraq on Monday as his troops ended a five-year reconstruction mission in the country - the latest departure from the dwindling U.S.-led coalition.

United Nations and Iraqi officials on Sunday revealed a plan to make Iraq's January elections more transparent and fair. The elections are expected to be heated races for control of the nation's provincial governments.