Iraq Bridge

Top US diplomat Antony Blinken was due to travel to Egypt on Tuesday for talks on a Gaza ceasefire after saying Israel had accepted a US "bridging proposal" for a deal and urging Hamas to do the same.

On a pontoon bridge connecting East and West Mosul, residents of a city shattered by the battle to expel ISIS cross back and forth trying to rebuild their lives from the rubble.

Iraqi forces have retaken the eastern edges of three of Mosul's five bridges, according to a senior Iraqi officer overseeing the operation to retake Iraq's second-largest city from the ISIS group.

US Vice President Joe Biden and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan emerged from a nearly four-hour meeting on Saturday, offering no indication that the US and Turkey had bridged their differences about how to deal with Islamic State fighters or Syrian President Bashar Assad.

A suicide car bomb attack killed seven people and destroyed a vital bridge Wednesday in Ramadi, the capital of the western province of Anbar where government forces have been battling jihadists.

Islamic State fighters on Tuesday destroyed a key bridge on the highway leading north from Baghdad, a move that could further hamper Iraqi government efforts to battle jihadists.

Across the broad swath of territory it controls bridging Syria and Iraq, extremist militants from the group known as the Islamic State have proven to be highly organised administrators. Flush with cash, they fix roads, police traffic, administer courts, and have even set up an export system of smuggled crude from oil fields they control.

Sunni militants advanced through west Iraq after seizing a strategic Syria border crossing, as US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in the region Sunday aiming to bridge widening rifts.

The prospect of an imminent Iraqi army assault on Falluja receded on Friday as negotiators tried to work out a deal under which al Qaeda militants who seized the city 10 days ago would give way to Sunni Muslim tribal leaders.

Iraq's ailing President Jalal Talabani, a key politician who sought to bridge political and sectarian divides, will be flown to Germany for specialist treatment after a reported stroke, his office said on Wednesday.

Top US diplomat Antony Blinken was due to travel to Egypt on Tuesday for talks on a Gaza ceasefire after saying Israel had accepted a US "bridging proposal" for a deal and urging Hamas to do the same.

On a pontoon bridge connecting East and West Mosul, residents of a city shattered by the battle to expel ISIS cross back and forth trying to rebuild their lives from the rubble.

Iraqi forces have retaken the eastern edges of three of Mosul's five bridges, according to a senior Iraqi officer overseeing the operation to retake Iraq's second-largest city from the ISIS group.

US Vice President Joe Biden and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan emerged from a nearly four-hour meeting on Saturday, offering no indication that the US and Turkey had bridged their differences about how to deal with Islamic State fighters or Syrian President Bashar Assad.

A suicide car bomb attack killed seven people and destroyed a vital bridge Wednesday in Ramadi, the capital of the western province of Anbar where government forces have been battling jihadists.

Islamic State fighters on Tuesday destroyed a key bridge on the highway leading north from Baghdad, a move that could further hamper Iraqi government efforts to battle jihadists.

Across the broad swath of territory it controls bridging Syria and Iraq, extremist militants from the group known as the Islamic State have proven to be highly organised administrators. Flush with cash, they fix roads, police traffic, administer courts, and have even set up an export system of smuggled crude from oil fields they control.

Sunni militants advanced through west Iraq after seizing a strategic Syria border crossing, as US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in the region Sunday aiming to bridge widening rifts.

The prospect of an imminent Iraqi army assault on Falluja receded on Friday as negotiators tried to work out a deal under which al Qaeda militants who seized the city 10 days ago would give way to Sunni Muslim tribal leaders.

Iraq's ailing President Jalal Talabani, a key politician who sought to bridge political and sectarian divides, will be flown to Germany for specialist treatment after a reported stroke, his office said on Wednesday.