Iraq

Okay, have we had enough distance between now and the Iraqi elections that the patriotically correct police won't freak out if I suggest that the violence in Iraq isn't exacty getting any better?

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A major oil fire raged Saturday after insurgents blew up a pipeline in the north of the country. The family of an anchorwoman for a U.S.-funded state television station -- a mother of four who was repeatedly shot in the head -- found her body dumped on a street in the northern city of Mosul.
Insurgents, meanwhile, killed two civilians in a roadside bombing west of Baghdad, a suicide car bomber killed an Iraqi national guardsman and injured seven people southwest of the capital and the U.S. military announced the death Friday of an American soldier killed in a massive security sweep in the Sunni Triangle.

As part of the offensive, residents in Ramadi, the Sunni-dominated city 70 miles west of Baghdad, reported clashes between insurgents and American forces, but the military provided no details. U.S. troops have been conducting an offensive in the region for nearly a week.

The U.S. military said an insurgent was killed and another was injured trying to build a bomb in an abandoned house in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown and the site of a Thursday suicide bombing that killed 15 Iraqi police.

The body of Raiedah Mohammed Wageh Wazan, the 35-year-old news presenter for the U.S.-funded Nineveh TV, was found dumped along a Mosul street six days after she was kidnapped by masked gunmen, according to her husband.