Baquba

Iraqi government forces retook four villages on Oct. 26 near a mountain ridge overlooking supply lines, security officials said, in a campaign which has struggled to make advances against the Sunni Islamist insurgents.

Iraq moved closer to turning the page on Nuri al-Maliki's reign when an alternative prime minister was named Monday to steer the country out of a raging war and save it from breakup.
      
"The country is in your hands," President Fuad Masum told Haidar al-Abadi after accepting his nomination by parliament's Shiite bloc, in a move immediately welcomed by the United States.

The strategic mainly ethnic Turkmen town of Telafer in north of Iraq has completely fallen to Sunni Arab militants after days of heavy fighting, a local official and witnesses said on June 23.

"The town of Telafer and the airport... are completely under the control of the militants," the official said on condition of anoymity.