In Baghdad, a city of darkness, gyms and health clubs may show the light. In a city riddled by war, divided by ideology and plagued by corruption and extremism, fitness has emerged as a unifying force as near 300 health clubs and gyms operate in Baghdad.

Fresh off his town hall meeting in Turkey on Monday, U.S President Barack Obama made a surprise stop in Baghdad on Tuesday.

Amb Crocker officially dedicated the new American Embassy in Baghdad in the presence of Iraqi Pres. Jalal Talabani and U.S. Deputy Sec of State John Negroponte. The US Marine Security Guard detachment raised the American flag accompanied by a rendition of the US National Anthem and music from the US Army 4th Inf band.

By tracking the amount of light emitted by Baghdad neighborhoods at night, a team of UCLA geographers has uncovered fresh evidence that last year's U.S. troop surge in Iraq may not have been as effective at improving security as some U.S. officials have maintained.

Iraqi officials are planning on having a ferris wheel built as a tourist attraction to the nation's capital, Baghdad. The wheel would be called 'Baghdad Eye' and is planned to sit over 650ft above the Tigris River. This is done in an effort to develope tourism to Baghdad and Iraq to change country's image. After all the countryis sitting on a huge multimillion dollar cash surplus.

Is this Los Angeles? Miami, maybe. If you were to guess where that photo above was taken, Iraq would probably not be your first guess. In our minds, that country looks more like full of violence and no extravagant life.

In better times, the Baghdad Zoo had more than 500 animals, including giraffes, elephants and exotic birds. But its location, inside Zawra Park in the city's center, put it in the middle of heavy fighting between invading U.S. troops and Saddam Hussein's forces in 2003. U.S. shells damaged the compound and inadvertently freed some animals; looting that followed the fall of Baghdad stripped away everything else.

A series of rockets or mortars has struck Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, home to the U.S. Embassy and Iraqi government headquarters.

The U.S. military says Iraqi and coalition forces have killed a suspected insurgent and detained 15 others in a raid on Baghdad's Sadr City district.

To many Americans, convenient shopping means easy, safe parking at clean, wholesome supermarkets. In Iraq, where shoppers often risk their lives buying groceries and vendors watch produce rot for lack of electricity or transport, marketing has different requirements.

The U.S. military says it has carried out a third air assault on a suspected militant stronghold south of Baghdad.

Iraq and other Gulf states have seen rare weather conditions, with snow falling in Baghdad for the first time in around 100 years, Saudi Press Agency reported.