The US embassy in Baghdad says its forces will not hand over three of Saddam Hussein's top associates for execution until Iraqi authorities have settled their differences over the case.

Fifteen al-Qaida suspects were killed by U.S. and Iraqi troops in a daylong battle south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Tuesday.

Some $1.6 trillion (EUR1.1 trillion) – this is the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan wars - roughly double the amount the White House has requested thus far, the U.S. Congress' Joint Economic Committee said.

Turkish warplanes bombed three Iraqi villages near the border town of Zakho in northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region on Tuesday but caused no casualties, a security official said.

Trying to avoid violence and harassment in Iraq, Palestinians are living at the Iraqi-Syrian border in awful conditions with they sick children having no medical treatment, the U.N. refugee agency said Friday.

Nine of twenty Iranian nationals held prisoner by U.S. troops in Iraq since January have been released, Iranian media reported on Friday.

Iraqi military officials say troops have found 17 decomposed bodies near the northern city of Baquba, the capital of Diyala province.

The U.S. military says it will soon release nine Iranians detained in Iraq who are no longer a threat to Iraqi security. The official also says Iran has honored its pledge to stop the flow of munitions to extremists in Iraq.

This year has proved to be the deadliest year for US troops in Iraq so far, with the death toll now the highest since the March 2003 invasion.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan says his government is still planning to take military action against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.

Turkey's president called on the United States to engage more fully in his country's fight against Kurdish rebels in North Iraq.

Donald Tusk, set to become Poland's prime minister this week, said on Tuesday the country's military contingent in Iraq should be brought home next year.