BAGHDAD — An attacker wearing explosives blew up Wednesday at a checkpoint in the city of Baqouba that was manned by Sunni Muslims allied with U.S. forces.

The attack, the latest in a recent rash of suicide bombings, killed four people and injured 23, police and Ministry of Interior officials said.

The strike followed the deadliest suicide bombing in Baghdad since September, a New Year's Day attack that killed at least 34 people and injured at least 38 at a funeral in Zayouna, an upper-class, mixed Sunni-Shiite Muslim neighborhood. » read more

BAGHDAD — Dr. Ahmed Farid heard it from his family and saw it with his own eyes: his old neighborhood in Baghdad is safer, maybe secure enough to move back from the city of Basra.

Since his family left the capital city in fall 2006, one of the most brutal periods since the war began, he's worked two medical jobs to cover rent and food. His children study in crumbling school buildings with 55 students to one teacher. Basra is close to his wife's family, but violence is boiling and Shiite Muslim power struggles continue.

Still, he won't return to Jihad, his Baghdad neighborhood, just yet. It's the place where he was a target for kidnappers, his daughter woke daily from panicked nightmares and he's not sure he can find a job. » read more