Wearing hooded sweatshirts, baseball hats and sports gear, the five young men alternated between nodding their heads to the rhythm and taking hold of the microphone to pour out their anger, their insights, their pain.

"No matter if you're Muslim, no matter if you're Christian, no matter the religion, we all are human," intones DK.

The scene and sounds wouldn't be unusual in many U.S. cities, where rap has been part of urban culture for decades.

But this is Baghdad.

Kifl is important to both Jews and Muslims and has withstood wars, disasters and growing pains. The site of the tomb of Ezekiel could bring in tourism to Iraq.

George Bush has claimed he was on a mission from God when he launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a senior Palestinian politician in an interview.

The Zulfiqar Mosque's minaret rises over Sadr City, curving at the top into the shape of the double-tipped sword from which it takes its name, the sword of Imam Ali.



But its unusual minaret is not all that distinguishes the mosque in this Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad. Inside, worshipers gaze up at something that was illegal under Saddam Hussein's rule and even now could put the mosque at risk: paintings.

Cancun, Miami, San Diego...Baghdad? Well, even if you’re not planning on going there for Spring Break, Iraq made an important step in becoming at least a viable destination for world travelers when Etihad Airways announced the commencement of flights between Abu Dhabi and Baghdad beginning on April 26th.Read More

On Monday, April 5, Wikileaks.org posted video footage from Iraq, taken from a US military Apache helicopter in July 2007 as soldiers aboard it killed 12 people and wounded two children. The dead included two employees of the Reuters news agency: photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and driver Saeed Chmagh.

The US military confirmed the authenticity of the video.

The footage clearly shows an unprovoked slaughter, and is shocking to watch whilst listening to the casual conversation of the soldiers in the background.

As disturbing as the video is, this type of behavior by US soldiers in Iraq is not uncommon.

Truthout has spoken with several soldiers who shared equally horrific stories of the slaughtering of innocent Iraqis by US occupation forces.

"I remember one woman walking by," said Jason Washburn, a corporal in the US Marines who served three tours in Iraq. He told the audience at the Winter Soldier hearings that took place March 13-16, 2008, in Silver Spring, Maryland, "She was carrying a huge bag, and she looked like she was heading toward us, so we lit her up with the Mark 19, which is an automatic grenade launcher, and when the dust settled, we realized that the bag was full of groceries. She had been trying to bring us food and we blew her to pieces."

Wikileaks has obtained and decrypted this previously unreleased video footage from a US Apache helicopter in 2007. It shows Reuters journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen, driver Saeed Chmagh, and several others as the Apache shoots and kills them in a public square in Eastern Baghdad. They are apparently assumed to be insurgents. After the initial shooting, an unarmed group of adults and children in a minivan arrives on the scene and attempts to transport the wounded. They are fired upon as well. The official statement on this incident initially listed all adults as insurgents and claimed the US military did not know how the deaths ocurred. Wikileaks released this video with transcripts and a package of supporting documents on April 5th 2010 on http://collateralmurder.com

BAGHDAD – As vote counting of Iraq’s parliamentary elections continued on Monday, March 8, Iraqis celebrated the success of their second polls since the US invasion.

HOLLYWOOD — The low-grossing Iraq war thriller "The Hurt Locker" has swept the prestigious Academy Awards, scooping six Oscar prizes and defeating the highest-grossing movie in modern history "Avatar".

The voter turnout in Iraq's general elections was 62%, officials said, despite attacks that killed 38 people.

Preliminary results are not expected for several days but the turnout figure is down from the 75% who voted in the 2005 general elections.

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's State of Law Coalition is widely expected to win the most seats.