The Army launched fresh operations this week, following mounting pressure to retake the onetime tourist idyll now controlled by ultraconservative militants.
Regardless of the outcome of Saturday?s elections, it is clear that the Americans are already drifting offstage ? and that most Iraqis are ready to see them go.
There was almost no violence during voting aimed at creating provincial councils that more closely represent Iraq?s ethnic, sectarian and tribal balance.
Umar S. Israilov, a former bodyguard of the president of Chechnya, for two years relentlessly accused the president of participating in torture sessions. In January, he was gunned down in Vienna.
AP - Passing through razor-wire cordons and police checkpoints, Iraqi voters Saturday took another step in the nation's quest for stability in provincial elections that were carried off without major violence but tarnished by claims of flaws and threats of challenges.
AP - Gov. Steve Beshear deployed every last one of his Army National Guardsmen on Saturday, with his state still reeling after a deadly ice storm encrusted it this week.
AP - President Barack Obama on Saturday promised to lower mortgage costs, offer job-creating loans for small businesses, get credit flowing and rein in free-spending executives as he readies a new road map for spending billions from the second installment of the financial rescue plan.
Thousands of Kentuckians without power sought refuge from their cold, dark homes over the weekend in shelters across the state, unsure of when they would be able to return. About 545,000 people still were without electricity and 200,000 without water three days after an ice storm hit.
At least seven people were killed and another 18 were missing early Sunday after a nursing home caught fire in northwestern Russia, state media reported.