Bomb strikes Shiite market in Baghdad, killing 69

The Ultimate BrutalityBAGHDAD – A bomb ripped through a crowded market in Baghdad's main Shiite district on Wednesday, killing at least 69 people and wounding more than 100 less than a week before a deadline for U.S. combat troops to leave Iraq's urban areas.
An Interior Ministry official said 69 people were killed and 135 wounded, while police and hospital officials in Sadr City put the death toll at 72.

http://newsIraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has said the recent wave of attacks in the country were isolated incidents which did not threaten overall security improvement, and would not delay the withdrawal of American forces.

At least 150 people were killed in just two days of suicide bomb attacks at the end of last week.

But Mr Maliki, in an exclusive BBC interview, said his government at the moment had no intention of taking up an American offer to keep troops in some Iraqi cities beyond the end of June, when they are supposed to leave.
www.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090624/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8020815.stm
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/world/middleeast/25iraq.html?hp

Military: Gitmo Yemeni Detainee Suicide June-02-09

A Yemeni detainee at Guantanamo Bay has died of an apparent suicide, U.S. military officials said Tuesday. His is the fifth apparent suicide at the offshore U.S. prison, which President Barack Obama hopes to close by January. The Joint Task Force that runs the U.S. prison in Cuba said guards conducting a routine check found Muhammad Ahmad Abdallah Salih unresponsive and not breathing in his cell Monday night.
The Yemeni prisoner, also known as Mohammad Ahmed Abdullah Saleh Al-Hanashi, had been held without charge at Guantanamo since February 2002, a month after the isolated U.S. base started taking prisoners. Military records show the alleged Taliban fighter was about 31.
The Associated Press showed that the prisoner's weight had dropped to about 86 pounds (39 kilograms) in December 2005 — an indication that he may have joined a long-running hunger strike among prisoners. He weighed 124 pounds (56 kilograms) when he was first taken to Guantanamo in February 2002.
Men on hunger strike had been force-fed a liquid nutrition mix through a tube inserted in their noses and down their throats