Asterisk denotes a new or updated item.

*BAGHDAD - Two men were gunned down inside their car in the Yarmouk district of Baghdad, Interior Ministry sources said.

*MOSUL - Eleven people, including two policemen, were wounded when a car driven by a suicide bomber exploded near a U.S. military patrol in Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - The bodies of six people were found shot dead in different districts of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - The Iraqi army arrested 21 suspected insurgents on Monday in different cities in Iraq, the army said on Tuesday.

SUWAYRA - The bodies of seven people were found, shot dead and blindfolded, in Suwayra, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

NEAR FALLUJA - The bodies of two people were found with gunshot wounds near Falluja, 50 km (35 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

SAQLAWIYA - The U.S. military killed two civilians on Monday after a roadside bomb exploded near their patrol in Saqlawiya, near Falluja, police said. The U.S. military said they did not have information on the incident.

BAGHDAD - The final death toll from an explosion and clashes which erupted between gunmen and police on Monday on Haifa street in central Baghdad is four policemen killed and 36 wounded, Interior Ministry sources said on Tuesday.

MOSUL - Gunmen set fire to food ration stores run by the Ministry of Trade in Mosul, police said.

NEAR KIRKUK - Gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades at two fuel trucks, killing two drivers and abducting the third on the main road between Kirkuk and Baghdad, police said. One of the trucks was set on fire.

DAQUQ - Gunmen wounded four people working for a private Iraqi company which deals with the U.S. military near the town of Daquq, 45 km (20 miles) south of Kirkuk, police said.

BAGHDAD - A policeman was killed and three wounded when a roadside bomb went off near their patrol in the Zayouna district of the capital, Interior Ministry sources said.

BAGHDAD - Gunmen killed a policeman in a drive by shooting in southwestern Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL - Three Iraqi soldiers were wounded when a roadside bomb went off near a joint Iraqi-U.S. patrol in Mosul, the Iraqi army said.

ISHAQI - Gunmen killed a police officer while he headed to work in the town of Ishaqi, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, the Joint Iraqi-U.S. Coordination centre said.

NEAR BAQUBA - The bodies of five people were found shot dead and blindfolded on Monday night in a village near Baquba, after being abducted hours earlier, police said.

DIWANIYA - Gunmen killed a former member of Saddam Hussein's ousted Baath party on Monday in the city of Diwaniya, 180 km (112 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

In a series of reports and news stories that emerged over the weekend, the tactics used by the US military in Iraq to interrogate prisoners and to hunt down suspected insurgents came under renewed scrutiny.

A Human Right Watch report released Sunday alleges that the US military routinely authorized the abuse of detainees and prisoners after these practices were exposed at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. The Associated Press reports that the human-rights group says detainees were regularly "physically mistreated, deprived of sleep and exposed to extreme temperatures as part of the interrogation process" between 2003 and 2005.

Soldiers were told that the Geneva Conventions did not apply, and that interrogators could use abusive techniques to get detainees to talk," wrote John Sifton, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. The organization said it based its conclusion on interviews with military personnel and sworn statements in declassified documents.

A Pentagon spokesman, Cmdr. Greg Hicks, said he wasn't aware of the report, but noted the military is reviewing its procedures regarding detainees following a Supreme Court ruling that the Geneva Conventions should apply in the conflict with Al Qaeda.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation News reports that senior researcher John Sifton says the findings are "the result of direct testimony from three former US soldiers about prisoners in American custody in Iraq between 2003 and 2005." Voice of America reports that the US military says it has conducted multiple reviews of interrogation techniques and found "no uniformed or civilian leaders directed or encouraged the prisoner abuses committed in Iraq."

The New York Times reported Sunday that four US soldiers who have been charged with murder in Iraq say they were only "acting under orders." In an incident this past May, the soldiers had released three Iraqi detainees, only to kill them as they were leaving. The men have been charged with premediated murder.

Lawyers for the soldiers deny that they released the detainees. They say the soldiers fired only after the Iraqis tried to break free and attack them. But the lawyers are also making a more startling claim: that the soldiers were given explicit orders before the raid to "kill all military-age males" they encountered.

The lawyers for the men also allege that after they captured the men, "a sergeant in the company asked over the radio why they had done so, instead of killing the Iraqis as they had been told to do."

The lawyers say that two senior officers - a colonel and a captain - have acknowledged that they gave that order, as have other men in the same company.

Any such order given would be "clearly unlawful, and any officer giving it would be liable for any action taken," said Gary D. Solis, a former military judge and prosecutor who teaches the law of war at Georgetown University. Mr. Solis said he found it hard to believe any such order was given.

In a series of articles in The Washington Post that accompany his new book "Fiasco: The American Military in Iraq," Pulitizer-Prize winning reporter Thomas Ricks details the aggressive tactics of the US military in Iraq, in particular the 4th Infantry and its commander, Maj. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno. Mr. Ricks's book was based on "a review of more than 30,000 pages of military documents, several hundred interviews with US military personnel, the author's own articles in The Washington Post, and reporting in The Post and other newspapers."

The Post article details Ricks's description of late summer 2003, when the use of "indiscriminate cordon and sweep operations" were a common tactic of the US military. He points out that "numerous Army internal documents" and interviews with military commanders tell how the 4th Infantry's "aggressive tactics" "alienated large sections of the population."

Lt. Col. David Poirier, who commanded a military police battalion attached to the 4th Infantry Division and was based in Tikrit from June 2003 to March 2004, said the division's approach was indiscriminate. "With the brigade and battalion commanders, it became a philosophy: 'Round up all the military-age males, because we don't know who's good or bad.' " Col. Alan King, a civil affairs officer working at the Coalition Provisional Authority, had a similar impression of the 4th Infantry's approach. "Every male from 16 to 60" that the 4th Infantry could catch was detained, he said. "And when they got out, they were supporters of the insurgency."

When interviewed by Ricks, Maj. Gen. Odierno mounted a "strenuous defense" against the idea that his tactics were overly aggressive, despite the view of his fellow officers. Odierno is currently in charge of III Corps at Fort Hood, Tex., and is schedule to return to Iraq to become the No. 2 US commander there, overseeing the day-to-day operations of US forces.

Ricks also writes that a sergeant who was accused of beating a detainee with a baton during interrogation "hurled those conclusions back at his chain of command."

"With the exception of myself, all interrogators at the TF IH ICE [Task Force Iron Horse Interrogation Control Element] were, and most remain, inexperienced at actual interrogation," the sergeant wrote. The division's intelligence efforts generally were "cursory," he added, because of "insufficient personnel, time and resources"...

What's more, he wrote, the institutional Army hadn't even taken the proper steps to prepare for this kind of war. "To my knowledge, no FM [field manual] covers counterinsurgency interrogation operations." But most striking from this NCO was a lengthy denunciation of the strategic confusion of those leading the Army in Iraq. "I firmly believe that [name of subordinate soldier redacted in document] took the actions he did, partially, due to his perception of the command climate of the division as a whole." He noted, for example, that division leaders had made comments such as, "They are terrorists, and will be treated as such."

But some bloggers have accused Ricks of having a bias against the US military and the Bush administration. The conservative blog, NewsBusters, remarks that the title of his book would lead Post readers to "...think in the day-to-day reporting on Iraq that Ricks is going to display a pronounced bad-news bias."

Bush told reporters he and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki discussed the plan at a meeting at the White House. He said forces would be moved to the capital from other areas of the country.

"Our military commanders tell me that this deployment will better reflect the current conditions on the ground in
Iraq," Bush said.

Maliki said building up Iraq's security and military in terms of numbers and equipment "represents the fundamental base in order to stabilize the country."

Curbing religious violence was the main objective of the security plan, Maliki added, vowing to protect all Iraqis "regardless of ethnic or religious background."

Maliki's selection as Iraqi prime minister prompted Bush to make a surprise visit to Baghdad on June 13 and, along with the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al Qaeda leader in Iraq, spawned hopes among Americans that things were changing for the better.

But with Sunni-Shiite violence claiming hundreds of lives in the weeks since, analysts see Iraq getting worse with violence among Shiite groups rising as well as Shiite-versus-Sunni bloodshed.

The survey did not speculate on what caused the shift in opinion, which supports President Bush's original rationale for going to war. Respondents were questioned in early July after the release of a Defense Department intelligence report that revealed coalition forces recovered 500 aging chemical weapons containing mustard or sarin gas nerve agents in Iraq.

"Filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist," said Sen. Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania Republican, during a June 21 press conference detailing the newly declassified information.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, who shared the podium, said, "Iraq was not a WMD-free zone."

72 percent say Iraqis are better off now

In recent weeks, the Michigan Republican has recommended that more material confiscated since the invasion be declassified and made public, including a 1998 standing order to Iraqi officials to hide or destroy weapons and thus evade inspectors from the United Nations.

Meanwhile, the Harris poll offered some positive feedback on Iraq. Seventy-two percent of respondents said the Iraqi people are better off now than under Saddam Hussein's regime -- a figure similar to that of 2004, when it stood at 76 percent. In addition, 64 percent say Saddam had "strong links" with al Qaeda, up from 62 percent in October 2004. Fifty-five percent said that "history will give the U.S. credit for bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq."

And although the response is tepid, American confidence in the Iraqis has improved: 37 percent said Iraq would succeed in creating a stable democracy, up five points since November.

Americans remain in touch with the realities of Iraq: 61 percent said the conflict has motivated more Islamic terrorists to attack the U.S. -- a number that has remained virtually unchanged since 2004.

An additional 41 percent say the war has reduced the threat of another major terrorist attack in the United States, a sentiment also unchanged in the past two years.

The financial burden of the war may be less keenly felt. The poll found that 56 percent said spending "huge amounts" for ongoing military efforts in Iraq means less funds are available to protect Americans at home. The figure was 62 percent last year, but 51 percent in 2004.

Has the war earned respect for the U.S. overseas? Sixty-eight percent said "no," the same as last year. The figure stood at 62 percent in 2004.

The poll of 1,020 adults was conducted July 5 to 11 and has a margin of error of three percentage points.

A group of House of Representatives Democrats was circulating a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert urging the Illinois Republican to secure an apology from Maliki or cancel the address on Wednesday to a joint meeting of Congress.

Ron Bonjean, Hastert's spokesman, said there was no intention to cancel Maliki's speech, and accused Democrats of "political gamesmanship during an election year."

Iraq's U.S.-backed government on Saturday denounced Israel's "criminal" raids on Lebanon and Gaza and warned that violence could escalate across the Middle East.

Senate Democrats in a letter to Maliki said his failure to condemn Hizbollah's "aggression and recognize Israel's right to defend itself raise serious questions about whether Iraq under your leadership can play a constructive role in resolving the current crisis and bringing stability to the Middle East."

With more than 2,500 U.S. service members killed in the Iraq conflict, more than 18,000 wounded and more than $300 billion in U.S. tax dollars spent, the Senate Democrats said, "Americans deserve to know whether Iraq in an ally in these fights."


© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved

Afghan authorities were also investigating the death of a Canadian man who was found in a house in northern Afghanistan. Four men were detained for questioning, officials said.

Meanwhile, the U.S.-led coalition announced it had killed more than 600 Taliban rebels in the past six weeks during an operation with Afghan forces to crush insurgents in the south. And the Afghan government launched an urgent appeal for more that $75 million to tackle an "imminent food crisis" caused by prolonged drought, particularly in the north and northwest.

Tuesday's bomb in Kabul - the latest in a series of recent blasts that have rattled nerves in the capital - killed a man and woman riding in a taxi and wounded four other people, police official Faiz Ahmad Hotaq.

In eastern Kunar province, a U.S. soldier was killed Monday in a gun battle with militants, coalition spokesman Col. Tom Collins said.

At least 258 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department.

The Canadian who was killed, identified as Mike Frastacky, was found in the house of an Afghan national in northern Baghlan province on Monday, said Mohammad Halam Rask, the province's governor.

Frastacky, who suffered three bullet wounds to the chest, was reportedly an independent aid worker helping to build a school in the area. His body was handed over to the Canadian Embassy in Kabul on Tuesday, said Gen. Eawaz Khan, the province's chief of police.

Alain Cacchione, an embassy official, confirmed the man was a Canadian citizen.

Four people, including the owner of the house, a neighbor, translator and bodyguard, were detained for questioning, Khan said.

Violence has escalated sharply in Afghanistan this year as Taliban-led rebels have stepped up attacks, particularly in their former southern heartland, drawing a tough response from Afghan and foreign forces.

Seven militants were killed Monday in eastern Paktika province during clashes with coalition soldiers. One coalition soldier was slightly wounded, a coalition statement said.

More than 10,000 U.S.-led troops have fanned out across the south in an attempt to break the Taliban's hold on the region, as NATO prepares to take over command of security operations there in one of the biggest and most dangerous missions in alliance history.

More than 600 suspected Taliban militants have been killed since Operation Mountain Thrust started June 10, Collins told reporters.

At least 19 coalition soldiers have also been killed in the same period, according to an Associated Press count based on coalition information.

The United States currently has 21,000 troops in Afghanistan, but with NATO bolstering its presence from 9,700 to 16,000, the United States is expected to withdraw several thousand.

The U.S. military also said Tuesday that two American engineer soldiers were seriously wounded in a roadside bomb attack in eastern Khost province. The soldiers were on their way to a road project Sunday between the towns of Khost and Gardez when they were attacked, the military said.

Their wounds were not life-threatening.

Also Tuesday, the Afghan government and United Nations launched an emergency appeal to help the country through a shortfall in this year's wheat harvest due to the prolonged drought. The areas hit hardest include Badghis, Samangan, Takhar, Jawzjan and Faryab provinces, Agriculture Minister Obaidullah Ramin said.

The money would support the "urgent needs" of more than 2.5 million people for six months, a joint statement by the Afghan government and the United Nations said.

Agriculture accounts for 52% of the impoverished nation's gross domestic product.

President Hamid Karzai, meanwhile, condemned the fatal shooting of an Afghan doctor and a driver for the international Christian relief and development organization World Vision. The pair were killed Sunday after delivering medicine to Charsada in Ghor province - a rare attack in a relatively stable region.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.

The support given by the U.S. administration for Israel's massive assault on Lebanon - and the understanding shown by the rest of the G-8 - has compounded Erdogan's difficulty in containing domestic pressure to disregard U.S. and European Union warnings against a cross-border operation to root out PKK bases in northern Iraq.

Accused of indecision by the opposition and pressed by his own supporters, Erdogan has to respond to the demand for national self-assertion, in spite of the misgivings expressed privately by some of his ministers.

Upsetting the United States and world financial institutions would be a more serious matter. The publicity given to the message delivered to the U.S. ambassador and to a "political directive" to the general staff to set in hand preparations for an assault on the PKK on both sides of the border is for the moment a substitute for a major cross-border incursion.

However, if the security situation does not improve - and particularly if the PKK were to succeed in mounting a spectacular attack in a metropolitan area - military action could not be delayed indefinitely. The three opposition parties represented in parliament - the center-left Republican People's Party (CHP) and the center-right True Path (DYP) and Motherland (ANAP) parties - have hastened to assure Erdogan of their support for a cross-border operation. Although more cautious voices are also heard - from a small group of liberal columnists - Erdogan and the AKP cannot disregard majority opinion as they prepare for presidential elections in May next year and then for legislative elections the following November.

Effective action against the PKK is needed not only to safeguard internal security but also to control the political situation in Turkey's southeastern provinces inhabited by the Kurds. As long as local people, and the politicians for whom they vote, fear the PKK (often more than they fear the security forces), the government will find it difficult to rely on elected local authorities in its efforts to end Kurdish disaffection through liberalization and regional aid.

According to Turkish authorities, in the 18 months to the end of June, PKK militants killed 148 members of the armed forces, 17 policemen, 18 village guards and 72 civilians. The number of injured exceeded 1,000. PKK losses amounted to 286 militants killed and 15 captured.

Gul is reported to have presented the U.S. ambassador with evidence of the presence in northern Iraq of some 150 leading members of the PKK and of the infiltration of men and military supplies into Turkey.

The PKK relies largely on long-range rifles and mines detonated from a distance for its hit-and-run attacks. Most of these weapons are said to come from former Iraqi army stocks.

Turkish patrols cross the Iraqi border frequently in pursuit of the PKK and have observation posts in Iraqi Kurdistan. However, a major operation would be needed to strike at the PKK headquarters on Qandil mountain (near the border with Iran) and Makhmur camp nearer the Turkish border.

After his meeting with Gul, the ambassador said that, rather than send troops into northern Iraq, Turkey should rely on the "three-way mechanism" - the process of consultation between Turkey, the Iraqi government and U.S. authorities in Iraq - that was established after earlier Turkish complaints.

However, after the last meeting of the three parties, arrest warrants were issued against the PKK leadership but no action was taken to implement them. Turkish authorities realize that U.S. forces are in no position to take action against the PKK in northern Iraq and that the Kurdish regional government will have to do so.

They also know that, contrary to conspiracy theories, Washington would be happy to see the back of the PKK but that the Iraqi Kurdish leaders may see some use in the PKK in their conflict of interest with Turkey, which opposes their demand for quasi-independence and their claim to Kirkuk and its oilfields. The Turks hope that the declaration of a "shared vision," issued after Gul's recent visit to Washington, means that they carry more weight in U.S. calculations than the Iraqi Kurds, for all the help that the latter gave (and the Turks refused) in ousting Saddam Hussein.

The Erdogan government has to respond to domestic demands for effective action to stop the PKK from using northern Iraq as a sanctuary from which it can attack targets inside Turkey. Although unwilling to send a significant force into northern Iraq, it will have to authorize a large-scale cross-border operation (by land, air or both) if terrorist incidents continue and Washington does not force the Kurdish regional government to eject the PKK.

Oxford Analytica is an international consulting firm providing strategic analysis on world events for business and government leaders. See www.oxan.com