AFP - Al-Qaeda has increasingly turned to extortion and organised crime to fund its activities, with businesses bearing the brunt of intimidation, US and Iraqi commanders in northern Iraq told AFP.

AFP - The Iraqi government wants jailed former deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz to die in prison and has shown no compassion for his declining health, his Amman-based son said on Monday.

AFP - Five Iraqi businessmen who were involved in building a police station and a youth centre north of Baghdad were killed in a gun and knife attack overnight, police and medical officials said on Monday.

AP - Only one of Nidal Haidar's six sisters is married. She has given up on ever getting hitched.

AP - Days after the U.S. officially ended combat operations and touted Iraq's ability to defend itself, American troops found themselves battling heavily armed militants assaulting an Iraqi military headquarters in the center of Baghdad on Sunday. The fighting killed 12 people and wounded dozens.