Middle East, Elections | featured news

Polling stations opened in Iraq on Sunday for a parliamentary election seen as crucial to the future of a country seeking stability after years of bloodshed.

A car bomb killed four Iranian pilgrims near Iraq's holiest Shi'ite shrine on Saturday, a day before a parliamentary election that Sunni Islamist insurgents have vowed to wreck.

Iraqi police say at least 31 people were killed and some 48 others wounded in three suicide bomb attacks in the northern city of Baquba Wednesday.

The Sunni wing of Iraq's leading nonsectarian political coalition is dropping out of next month's elections, saying the vote ...

A female suicide bomber detonated a vest rigged with explosives among a crowd of Shiite Muslim pilgrims in northeastern Baghdad on Monday, killing 54 and wounding 109, marking the latest in a string of attacks that had unnerved the city ahead of pivotal national elections in March.

Suicide bombers attacked three hotels used by foreigners in the heart of Baghdad on Monday, killing at least 36 people and raising questions about government pledges on security before a March election.

The unannounced visit amounted to a stern pep talk from the Obama administration to exhort President Hamid Karzai to do a better job at addressing corruption.

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan accused the United Nations on Saturday of intervening in the formation of President Hamid Karzai's next cabinet, less than a week into his new term.

There were no bids by younger Palestinian leaders on Friday to step into the shoes of President Mahmoud Abbas, who says he does not want to run for re-election in January.

The Palestinian president says he doesn't want to run for re-election in the January balloting.