Iraq's prime minister warned Turkey on Wednesday it risked triggering a regional war by keeping troops in his territory, as the neighbouring states summoned each other's ambassadors in a mounting diplomatic stand-off.
Iraqi forces on Thursday pushed the Islamic State group from Qayyarah, a northern town considered strategic for any future offensive against the jihadists' last stronghold of Mosul.
Kurdish Peshmerga forces launched a fresh attack on Islamic State militants early on Sunday, as part of a campaign to capture the de facto IS capital Mosul, a Kurdish official said.
Thousands of supporters of powerful Shia Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr filled a central Baghdad square on Friday, disregarding government pleas to scrap protests it said would distract from the war against Islamic State.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi sacked the head of the Baghdad security command and other officials after a bombing in the capital killed 292 people, his office said on Friday.
At least four people were killed and 90 injured among anti-corruption protesters who stormed Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, hospital sources said on Saturday.
Bomb attacks claimed by Islamic State against a state-run cooking gas factory in Baghdad's northern outskirts on Sunday killed at least 11 people, including policemen, and wounded 21 others, police sources said.
Three car bombs in Baghdad, including a huge blast at a market in a Shia area, killed at least 94 people on Wednesday, the bloodiest day in the Iraqi capital this year.
Thousands of protesters were inside Baghdad's Green Zone after breaking into the fortified area and storming parliament, as Iraq's premier called for rioters to be pursued and punished.
US Vice President Joe Biden met Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in an unannounced visit to Baghdad to show support for the government as it builds on wins against Islamic State.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi named Nizar Salem al-Numan as a candidate for the key post of oil minister as part of a cabinet reshuffle aimed at fighting corruption.
