US state department says law could drive away foreign investment and David Cameron calls it ‘dangerous and worrying’ Human rights groups and diplomats have criticised a law passed by the Iraqi parliament over the weekend that would impose heavy prison sentences on gay and transgender people. The US state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, said in a statement that the law passed on Saturday “threatens those most at risk in Iraqi society” and “can be used to hamper free speech and expression”. He warned the legislation could drive away foreign investment ..read more

Amendments to anti-prostitution law also enable courts to sentence trans people to three years in prison Iraq’s parliament has passed a bill making same-sex relations punishable by up to 15 years in prison, in a move condemned as an “attack on human rights”. Transgender people will also be sentenced to three years in jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 out of 329 lawmakers on Saturday ..read more

Officials say unidentified man killed influencer who had previously been imprisoned over dancing videos A man on a motorbike has shot dead a social media influencer known as Om Fahad outside her Baghdad home, Iraqi security officials have said. The unidentified attacker shot Om Fahad in her car in the Zayouna district on Friday, a security official said, requesting anonymity because he was not cleared to speak to the media ..read more

Residents return to site in search of bodies of loved ones following withdrawal of Israeli forces last month. This live blog is closed Israel has yet to provide evidence of Unrwa staff terrorist links, Colonna report says Haaretz reports that Israeli security forces have arrested two people suspected of carrying out a car ramming in Jerusalem. Three people are reported to have been injured. Aharon Haliva, who was the general in command of the IDF’s military intelligence directorate on 7 October, has resigned over the failure of Israel’s military to prevent the attack inside southern Israel b ..read more

Officials report casualties with some citing air strike on former anti-Isis unit known as Hashed al-Shaabi, which is now part of Iraq’s regular military An explosion has hit an Iraqi military base housing pro-Iranian paramilitaries, according to security sources. The explosion on Friday night was at the Calso base, where former pro-Iranian paramilitary group Hashed al-Shaabi – now integrated into the regular army – is stationed, an interior ministry source and a military official told Agence France-Presse ..read more

Democrat praised for serving with ‘immense dignity and courage’ during five-decade career while also perfecting ‘workdays’ to connect with constituents Former US senator and two-term Florida governor Bob Graham, who gained national prominence as chairman of the Senate intelligence committee in the aftermath of the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks and as an early critic of the Iraq war, has died aged 87. Graham’s family announced the death in a statement posted on X by his daughter Gwen Graham on Tuesday ..read more

Jury trial against military contractor CACI over ‘sadistic, blatant and wanton abuses’ comes 20 years after scandal broke The first trial to contend with the post-9/11 abuse of detainees in US custody begins on Monday, in a case brought by three men who were held in the US-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The jury trial, in a federal court in Virginia, comes nearly 20 years to the day that the photographs depicting torture and abuse in the prison were first revealed to the public, prompting an international scandal that came to symbolize the treatment of detainees in the US “war on terror ..read more

The veteran American photojournalist has documented the US’s foreign wars and its divisions​ at home. He talks about his new book, which brings the two together with ambiguous and often disturbing results Peter van Agtmael was nine years old in August 1990 when America went to war with Iraq for the first time. Mesmerised by the wave of patriotic fervour that ensued, he cut out and cherished a newspaper diagram showing the array of technological weaponry deployed by the US military. In the introduction to his new photo book, Look at the USA: A Diary of War and Home, he writes: “This was very ex ..read more

Newly released documents also reveal worries that reducing troop levels in Iraq would squander ‘the benefits’ to US-Australia alliance Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast Secret cabinet documents from the Iraq war period show the Howard government viewed “continued access by the developed world to Middle East oil reserves” as one of Australia’s key national interests. The newly released papers also show the government planned to reduce troop levels just months after the US-led invasion of Iraq, but w ..read more

Mediha Ibrahim Alhamad was 10 years old when Islamic State fighters raided her Yazidi village and sold her into sexual slavery. The gift of a film camera ‘saved her life’ and led to an award-winning documentary The horrors Mediha Ibrahim Alhamad experienced during her three years of Islamic State captivity is something she will never forget. She was just 10 when she was kidnapped from her home in Sinjar, in northern Iraq, in the summer of 2014, and sold into sexual slavery among IS fighters. Yet when she was released, she felt “nobody would listen to me”. Mediha, now 19, has since found solace ..read more