At least three Iraqis were killed and 13 more were wounded in light violence. Iran maintained a dominant place in Iraqi headlines by offering a conciliatory explanation of its recent incursion into Iraqi territory and speaking on the fate of three American hikers who traveled in the opposite direction.
An Iranian spokesman said that recent tensions over the Fakka oil filed were part of a misunderstanding and work on demarcating the border needs to restart soon. Parts of the Iraq-Iran border have been contested for decades. In Iraq, Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi called Friday’s incursion a ‘wanton aggression against Iraq’s sovereignty," while Kurdish MP Mahma Khalil criticized Arab "silence" on the matter.
Meanwhile, an Iranian prosecutor spoke of 11 Iranians allegedly held in U.S. custody as he explained the ongoing investigation into three American who crossed the border into Iran while hiking in Iraq.
The U.S. military commander in northern Iraq defended his policy of punishing soldiers who become pregnant or impregnate other soldiers as an effort to avoid losing more soldiers to redeployment than are already scheduled.
In Mosul, an Iraqi soldier was killed and his brother was wounded in a small arms attack. Gunmen stormed a clinic, where they killed a soldier and wounded a medic.
One civilian was killed and four were wounded during a blast on a minibus in Iskandariya.
In Baghdad, a bomb in Yarmouk wounded two people.
A bomb wounded a police captain and his bodyguard in Kirkuk. At least one more policeman was injured in this or a separate incident. Two rockets were found and disarmed. Police detonated an abandoned car.
An adhesive bomb in Tikrit wounded a police officer as he was driving home. Four Iranians were arrested for entering the country illegally.
In Fallujah, an I.E.D. wounded a civilian. No casualties were reported after a judicial council member’s car was damaged in a bomb attack.
Twenty-two suspects were arrested across Basra province. Arms and ammunition were confiscated.
Karbala police arrested a suspected al-Qaeda member.
In Sharqat, police discovered 49 sticky bombs and arrested a gang of men thought responsible for an oil pipeline attack.
