He has become a local Osama bin Laden, planning bomb attacks from his secret hideout and hurling threats against the Lebanese army through voice recordings.

But the mystery of his disappearance might be close to an end. In the last few days, new clues about the whereabouts of Shaker al-Abssi, the leader of an Al Qaeda-inspired group were revealed across the Lebanese media.

The 53-year-old Palestinian guerrilla allegedly managed to cross the Lebanese border into Syria after staying incognito for months at a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon, media reports and security officials said. 

Abssi, along with hundreds of Islamic fighters, engaged in fierce battles against the Lebanese army during the summer of 2007 before being crushed at the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in northern Lebanon. Almost 400 people, including militants and soldiers, were killed.

Authorities first believed that Abssi died during the battles after his wife and other clerics who had known him identified one of the corpses found in the battlefield as his. But DNA tests showed that the body in question did not belong to Abssi.

Within official quarters in Washington, Baghdad and Tehran these days, lots of eyeballs are zeroing in on the process of hammering out a Status of Forces of Agreement that would legitimize the presence of United States troops in Iraq after a United Nations mandate expires Dec. 31.

Shiite Iran has enormous influence over Iraq, with deep ties to all the major Shiite and Kurdish political parties and even to the main Sunni groups. It has delivered mixed signals about how it views current deal hammered out with U.S. officials by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and approved by his Cabinet.

Iranian officials have been surprisingly tight-lipped about the proposed deal. Hassan Qashqavi, the spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry said on Sunday that Tehran was waiting for Iraqi lawmakers, who must still vote on the deal, to weigh in:

"The Iraqi nation is in its most historic and decisive moment. We should wait and see when the security draft reaches on the floor of the parliament."

He chided a reporter who pressed him on the matter:

"Do not be in a hurry. Let 's see what will be the reaction of the parliament."

Iranian newspapers, which pretty much all represent different factions within the country's ruling elite, have shown similar wishy-washiness.

Amid the drama over the Iraqi Cabinet's decision to approve a security pact giving American forces another three years on the ground here, it was easy to miss another milestone. The Cabinet has formally announced the date for provincial elections: Jan. 31, 2009.

The decision, announced Tuesday, is the first time a date has been declared. The provincial election law passed by Parliament in September only said that the vote should be held by Jan. 31 but left in the air exactly when it would happen. This gives the country's political groups time to get ready for the official two-month campaigning period, which will begin Dec. 1. With luck and organization, it will give election officials time to arrange what is sure to be a massive undertaking.

The term "provincial election" might not sound sexy to many people, but here in Iraq, the elections have been eagerly awaited and are seen as perhaps the best way to revamp the country's skewed political structures and some of the sectarianism that has bedeviled the country. Their outcome could determine the state of the nation that U.S. troops leave behind when President-elect Barack Obama is in office and his plan to draw down forces takes hold.

The last provincial elections were held in 2005, and Sunni Arab groups boycotted them. That left many provinces, even those with substantial Sunni populations, governed by councils dominated by Shiites and Kurds.

When an explosion rocked downtown Tel Aviv Monday afternoon, Israelis naturally assumed it was a terrorist  suicide bombing.

It turned out to be garden-variety, apolitical criminal violence: an underworld hit that killed notorious Israeli crime boss Yaakov Alperon.

Known as "Don Alperon," the 53-year-old was a semi-celebrity in Israel, known for brazenly moving about with little or no security despite an active mob war among several competing crime families.

"It's a miracle he made it to the age of 53," said Israeli parliamentarian and former deputy police commissioner Yitzhak Aharonovitch.

Earlier in the day he had appeared at a court hearing for his son Dror, who faces extortion charges. It's possible an explosive device was planted on his unprotected car while he was in the courthouse.

The most immediate suspects are rival families the Abergils and the Abutbuls. Israeli Army Radio said police believe that the hit was the result of a dispute among the families over a lucrative bottle recycling operation. The different families also struggle for control of multimillion dollar gambling, protection and drug-trafficking rackets.

Alperon had famously survived multiple assassination attempts over the years, including a grenade attack on his home in 2001 and a car bomb in 2003. And while a simmering family war has been going on for several years -- killing dozens of gangsters and at least 13 innocent bystanders -- authorities fear Alperon's assassination will boost the warfare to a bloody new level.

"I believe the response will come. This won't pass quietly," Aharonovitch said.

-- Ashraf Khalil in Jerusalem

The king spared the barber.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has rescinded the death penalty against a Turkish barber convicted of “cursing” the name of God.

Sabri Bogday, who cuts hair in the port of Jidda, was sentenced to beheading for swearing during an argument with his neighbor, a tailor.

Turkish media reported  that Turkey’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia informed Bogday’s family that he had been spared.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul had asked the king to set aside the verdict.

After Bogday's arrest, the Arab News in Saudi Arabia quoted a lawyer who described how the court viewed using God's name in vain: 

“Some judges consider it heresy and infidelity, and say that the accused cannot repent and so faces the death penalty. Others consider the statement to be disbelief, thus allow the accused to retract what he has said and repent and then set him free. ... Sentences in these cases are limited and considered rare, because the judgment is not based on something that is written.”

While reporters from local and international news organizations crammed into a Cairo courtroom over the weekend to cover the trial of an Egyptian real estate mogul implicated in the killing of a Lebanese singer, the judge announced a media blackout.

Justice El-Mohamadi Qunsowa said the ban on trial coverage was ordered to keep the media from infringing upon the court’s jurisdiction in the case of Hisham Talaat Mustafa. The multi-millionaire is accused of hiring a former cop to murder his ex-girlfriend, the troubled diva Suzanne Tamim, whose body was found in a Dubai apartment last summer.

The case has attracted nonstop media attention since the arrest of Mustafa in September. The coverage carried serious political overtones as the defendant is a prominent member of the ruling party and a member of parliament. Some media outlets led campaigns contending that the case exposed the corruption of Egypt's political and business elite. This was countered by a book written by a lawyer claiming that Mustafa is innocent.

Despising America has long been a Middle East pastime, but then the country that brought war to Iraq and orange-suited prisoners to Guantanamo Bay elected a Facebook-friendly president who speaks in poems.

What’s a mullah to do?

With the speed of a Twitter missive, the cultural game has shifted. Barack Obama’s rise to the White House comes when the Arabs are intensely suspicious of U.S. intentions, and when Islam, through satellite TV and the Internet, is inundated with Western culture.

Eight years of President Bush gave conservative Muslims a buttress against America. But Obama, who plays as well in Hollywood as he does in the villages of Kenya, is changing Washington’s image from a cowboy with snarling sound bites to a conciliator with star appeal.

Check out the rest of the story in today's Los Angeles Times.

— Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo

Photo: President-elect Obama. Credit: Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images

A new spate of violent standoffs between Egyptian police and Bedouins has rocked the Sinai Peninsula, leaving three Bedouins dead and 30 policemen wounded.

Violence escalated after a tribesman was killed in a shootout on Monday.

Though firefights are somewhat common in the peninsula, the killing provoked outrage. Bedouins seized a police station, temporarily held 25 policemen hostage and confiscated 72 automatic rifles and 20,000 bullets as well as walkie-talkies and night-vision goggles, according to press reports.

The rumblings of the disenchantment of Sinai tribes date to police crackdowns that began four years ago, leading to large waves of arrests, detentions without charges, gun battles and the use of illegal interrogation methods.

Tightened security followed two large-scale bombings that rocked the peninsula in 2004 and 2005. Since then, the police tactics in Sinai have been condemned by local and international human rights groups.

In a first of its kind, Dubai last week unveiled a new banking service that caters only to women.

The Emirates Islamic Bank newest branch in the United Arab Emirates offers women a financial zone free of men, but also custom-made banking products, including retail-outlet discounts, special travel packages and discounts on bank products in addition to exclusive ladies lounges, free Internet and text-message banking.

“Catering to the individual needs of our customers has always been a core part of our business model, and opening an exclusive Al Reem branch is an extension of that belief,” said Faisal Aqil, an official at Emirates Islamic Bank told the daily Gulf News.

After months of tense negotiations and countless amendments, Iraq's Cabinet today approved a Status of Forces Agreement that outlines the future of American troops in Iraq. Under the plan, which now goes to the Parliament, U.S. troops would pull out of Iraqi cities by the end of June 2009 and would leave the country by the end of 2011.

But some opponents say they want a total withdrawal sooner than 2011; others say, whatever the final plan, it should be approved not by politicians but by the public in a referendum.

If you look closely at the photograph above, taken during the Cabinet's vote, you'll notice one hand not raised. The minister with her hands folded in front of her represents the main Sunni bloc in Parliament, which says the public, not Parliament, should decide on such an important pact. Also opposing the pact are lawmakers from Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr's bloc. Sadr on Friday threatened to revive armed elements of his Mahdi Army militia and return to war with U.S. forces if such an agreement is allowed to go through.

Despite these differences, the Cabinet approval had been anticipated following Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's decision to accept what he concluded was the best deal Iraq was going to get from the Americans. That deal includes the firm withdrawal dates, which will not be based on conditions on the ground as the United States had initially wanted. As government spokesman Ali Dabbagh made clear after the Cabinet vote, those dates are "final and decided."

Whatever concessions the United States made to get the pact approved, a statement issued from a U.S. Embassy representative in Iraq said the Americans welcomed the Cabinet vote. "This is an important and positive step," the statement said.

Other major elements of the pact include a ban on U.S. forces searching and raiding homes without Iraqi approval, the right of Iraqis to search shipments of weapons and other packages coming into the country for U.S. recipients, and the right of Iraq's justice system to prosecute American troops for serious crimes under some circumstances.

The question now is what will happen when the pact goes before Parliament, presumably this week. Will the pact's detractors try to prevent its passage, perhaps by staging walkouts and denying Parliament a quorum? Will Sadr make good on his vow to send his personal brigade into battle against the pact? If it passes Parliament, will Sunni Vice President Tariq Hashimi, who has led the call for a referendum, use his power on the presidency countil to veto it?

As one lawmaker said of the potential hurdles facing the legislature, "This will be an adventure."

--Times staff writers

Photo: The Iraqi Cabinet votes on the Status of Forces Agreement. Courtesy: Government of Iraq parliament.

Iraq’s Vice President Tariq Hashimi and his Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party could very well prove to be the force that blocks a U.S.-Iraq security agreement from being signed this year. Hashimi insisted this month that the pact be put before a popular referendum. His party members concede such a referendum would not be possible until sometime next year.

Hashimi (right) indicated his stance at the same time Shiite lawmakers close to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki have made clear they are now supporting an agreement for U.S. forces to stay in the country for another three years.

Without Hashimi’s Iraqi Islamic Party,  Shiite lawmakers, close to Maliki, have said that it makes no sense to bring the pact to a vote in parliament  The ruling Shiite coalition said it wants the country’s main groups – the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds -- to agree to the text.

The fact that Sunnis are not backing the agreement is a possible excuse for Maliki,  he could escape blame if the agreement is not approved before the end of December. Confidantes to the prime minister indicated only Friday that Maliki was now lobbying for the text, after months of ambiguity. The lawmakers said Maliki planned to back the agreement in a cabinet meeting, tentatively scheduled for Sunday, with hopes of swiftly sending it to parliament for a vote.

Last month, we wrote about the revival of Baghdad's National Theater and the resilience of the actors, actresses, directors and writers who had kept their artistry alive through the war and who finally were launching their first nighttime performances since the U.S. invasion of March 2003.

On Saturday, bombers struck outside the theater just before sunset. Police say an Oldsmobile blew up as people were heading to the theater in the capital's Karada district. Initial reports from police said five people were killed and 23 injured. A dozen cars along the busy street were badly damaged or destroyed.

In northern Iraq, at least 12 people were killed and 36 wounded when a bomb struck the city of Tall Afar outside Mosul. The city has been repeatedly hit by suspected Sunni insurgents who are believed to cross over from nearby Syria to fuel the violence brewing in that region between Sunni Arabs and Kurds vying for power.

Both attacks showcased the instability across Iraq, where violence has greatly decreased in the past year but where regular Iraqis' view of things often differs from the U.S. military's vision. The United States consistently points out the positives -- lower attack numbers, lower death and injury tolls each month, arrests of suspected insurgents. The people who live in the neighborhoods, go to work each day and contend with the unpredictable nature of things, look at life differently.

She may be queen of an ancient land. But this week word emerged that Queen Rania of Jordan was winner of a distinctively 21st century honor. She has been given YouTube's first-ever Visionary Award for launching an interactive online channel to combat stereotypes and misconceptions associated with Arabs and Muslims, Jordan's Petra news agency reported.

The news was announced Thursday by YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley:

Queen Rania sets the standard for breaking down stereotypes and her YouTube videos are nothing short of inspirational. It is both a pleasure and an honor to present her with this much-deserved tribute.

The Visionary Award celebrates active and motivated users of YouTube whose aim is to utilize the service as an open platform to foster dialogue, highlight social and cultural issues and work for positive change in their communities and around the world.

The international fairground in Baghdad used to look like this (below), a sad remnant of its former self.

But for the past few days, it has had a distinctly different look with the opening of the first International Fair to be held here since the U.S. invasion of March 2003.

About 150 companies converged  on the western side of the Tigris River for the fair, which opened Tuesday and closes Saturday.

There were the usual annoying fixtures of Baghdad life to contend with: the frisking of anyone who entered the fairgrounds; the road closures in the area that slowed traffic to a crawl. But once inside, the atmosphere was joyful as people sat inside the new cars on display, watched firefighters leap from cranes onto a giant air bag, and sipped coffee and tea.

"Why don't they let the women be searched by us?" cracked one male security guard frisking men as he eyed the female fair visitors, most of them dressed in fancy clothes for the event.

The fair's opening was a sign of the Iraqi government's determination to lure investment back to Iraq, whose security risks have made it a hard sell. Earlier this month, another investment effort was launched with the opening of a five-star hotel and business center at the Baghdad airport.

"It's a beginning," said Herbert Lange, who worked with the Iraqi Trade Ministry in organizing the fair. "This is the right time. We're going to get business back to Iraq."

Several months of comparative peace and quiet in the Gaza Strip are on the verge of unraveling, raising the looming possibility of fresh rounds of  bloodshed. 

Israel tightened  its blockade on the coastal strip after several days of clashes and rocket launches by Gazan militants toward Israeli border cities. Gaza City's main power plant shut down Thursday for lack of fuel and a crucial United Nations relief agency announced it had run out of supplies and would suspend distribution of  food and household goods.

The escalating conflict is the strongest threat yet to the five-month cease-fire between Israel and the militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza. The agreement, which is up for renewal next month, has largely held firm, and Israeli officials have said they hope to see it continue.

The latest cycle of conflict began on Nov. 4, in an event largely overshadowed by the U.S. president elections. Israeli forces launched a raid that night to shut down what the army claimed was a cross-border tunnel intended to be used to ambush and kidnap Israeli soldiers. Subsequent  clashes and Israeli raids and airstrikes have killed at least 10 Gazans, most reportedly militant fighters.

In response, Gazan militant groups have resumed what had been daily launches of makeshift rockets toward southern Israeli towns.  A fresh rocket barrage targeted the beleaguered city of Sderot on Tuesday, with reports of one elderly woman injured by shrapnel and several people treated for shell  shock.

Israel meanwhile has barred foreign reporters from entering Gaza, prompting protests from the local Foreign Press Assn.

In what is being described as a “breakthrough” for women in the conservative Persian Gulf, judicial authorities in the United Arab Emirates this week appointed a woman to conduct Muslim marriages for the first time in the region, where women are often relegated to a secondary role in society.

Fatima Saeed Obeid al-Awani, 33, a married mother of two boys, was named on Thursday as the UAE’s first woman maazoun — a judicial official, much like a notary — who presides over wedding ceremonies and stamps marriage and divorce certificates, according to the emirate’s official news agency, WAM.

Awani is the second woman in the Muslim world to conduct marriages after a female lawyer was appointed to the same post in Egypt in February. The Egyptian move ruffled, then, a lot of feathers in the Arab region with many contesting the decision as contrary to the laws of Islam.

In reprisal for the sentencing of two Egyptian doctors in Saudi Arabia to more than a thousand lashes for drug trafficking and sexual offenses, the Egyptian Labor Force Ministry announced this week Egyptian doctors are banned from signing contracts with Saudi private hospitals.

The ban appears to be an attempt to save the government’s credibility after harsh public criticism of Egypt's failure to protect its expatriates. According to the independent daily El-Masry El-Youm, the government decision was aimed at containing public outrage. The newspaper quoted anonymous sources as saying the labor ministry took the step after diplomatic talks with the Saudi government failed to set aside the lashing sentence.

Saudi Arabia recently sentenced two Egyptian doctors to 15 and 20 years in jail and 1,500 lashes each. The verdict has been condemned by Egyptian doctors and the media. Both doctors worked for private hospitals in the kingdom.

Egyptian doctors gathered Tuesday at the headquarters of the Doctor’s Syndicate in downtown Cairo in protest of the whipping of their colleagues. They raised banners reading: “Where is the dignity of Egyptians?” and called on the Saudi King to pardon the convicts.

In 2004, as the war in Iraq heated up, the Pentagon ordered all family members of sailors stationed in the Persian Gulf island-nation of Bahrain to return to the U.S. As a safety measure, 650 spouses and children were evacuated in July of that year.

It was a morale downer for the sailors. And it struck at the heart of the Bahraini government's preferred image as a safe and civil place in a turbulent region -- the kind of spot where international corporations would feel confident investing their money.

Fast forward to last week: The Pentagon, after assessing the current level of safety, announced that spouses could return to Bahrain. It is expected the order will include children by fall of 2009.

Two hundred sailors immediately applied to have their spouses join them -- even though it meant extending their deployments from one year to two.

As the international financial crunch continues to hit Persian Gulf markets, trade at the Kuwait Stock Exchange was halted by a Kuwaiti court ruling today in an effort to curb the slump in the market’s slide, according to Kuwait’s official news agency KUNA.

The unprecedented ruling will be maintained until Nov. 17, when the court will review its decision aimed at preventing massive losses among small investors in this rich small emirate, which is the fourth-largest oil producer in the world. 

In a first reaction, Kuwait's finance minister, Mustafa Shimali,  said that his government would uphold the ruling but he criticized the court's decision as "dangerous," according to KUNA: 

"We respect the court ruling and as a government we only have to implement it.... The consequences of this ruling would be dire.... How will those who filed the suit shoulder the consequences?"

This comes amid pressing demands from Kuwaiti investors for the government to intervene and stop the big losses in the emirate's stock market, the second largest in the region after that of Saudi Arabia. 

It's common for Marines wounded in combat to want to remain in the corps despite their injuries.

But few have shown the grit of Lance Cpl. Matthew Ryan Bradford, who lost his eyesight and both legs in an explosion in Haditha, Iraq, on Jan. 18, 2007.

The 22-year-old spent months in military and Veterans Affairs hospitals, undergoing surgeries, being fitted for prosthetic eyes and learning to walk on prosthetic legs.

He attended a Marine Corps birthday ball just 10 months after his injury. Now he's taking computer classes.

Some of the best on-the-ground reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan has been done by reporter/journalism professor Andrew Lubin.

He's done multiple tours with U.S. troops in both countries. And he's not averse to the strategic use of firepower. Witness his book "Charlie Battery: A Marine Battery Unit in Iraq."

But in two recent dispatches from Afghanistan, he emphasizes the vexing economic aspects of the war against the Taliban.

In "Afghanistan--A Local War: The Tegab Valley," he writes "...with literacy levels under 20% there are many issues that need to be addressed before Afghanistan reaches even 'developing world' status."

When the men from the Committee to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice arrived unexpectedly at a shopping mall in Jeddah, the trendy Saudi youth in their Western-style attire were seized with fear. 

The religious force is notorious for beating up and arresting men and women in Saudi Arabia for what they perceive as immoral behaviors as well as Western ways of behaving or dressing up.

But this time, the bearded men of the religious police had totally different intentions. They just wanted to engage in a game of bowling with a group of youth at the mall in the Saudi coastal city, the local daily Al-Watan reported on Tuesday.   

The newspaper said that high-ranking officials from this police force, who turned out to be talented bowlers, won the game against the young group of bowlers. They all engaged in a friendly conversation, Al-Watan added.

This unusual event raised questions in the kingdom about whether the morality police widely viewed as austere and brutal are trying to spruce up their public image by engaging with young people.

Sharing the bright lights with such luminaries as Sen. Hillary Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and movie star Nicole Kidman, 10-year-old child divorcee Nujood Ali and her attorney Shada Nasser were in the big city of New York this week as winners of Glamour magazine's 2008 Women of the Year award.

The trip completes Nujood's journey from a poor daughter of an unemployed laborer in the slums of a teeming city on the southern edge of Arabia to an international celebrity and women's rights symbol.

Nujood was married off earlier this year to a man three times her age. He sexually assaulted and physically abused her. But unlike other child brides in Yemen, she didn't suffer silently.

Spunky and precociously self-assured, she went to court and eventually found Nasser, who helped her get a divorce in what is widely considered the first such incident of its kind.

Nujood's ordeal, triumph and her eventual return to some semblance of normalcy as a schoolgirl were chronicled in the Los Angeles Times.

Hadia Abbas Haroun was seven months pregnant when she escaped Darfur's bloodshed, fleeing into Egypt with dreams of crossing yet another border to start a new life in Israel. But as she sneaked through the the Sinai desert region in July 2007, the Sudanese woman was shot and killed by Egyptian border guards.

The killing of Haroun marked the inception of an Egyptian shoot-to-stop policy that has left at least 33 African migrants, refugees and asylum seekers dead, according to a report released in Cairo today by Human Rights Watch.

“The Egyptian government should send a clear message to stop shooting the defenseless, harmless and [non-threatening] people on the border,” Human Rights Watch researcher Bill Van Esveld told journalists after the release of the 90-page report. “Unfortunately, it does not seem that Egyptian officials here recognize the seriousness of the problem.”

According to the report, compiled by Van Esveld, 32 out of the 33 victims were African. They ranged in age from a 7-year-old girl to a man in his 50s.

"This is a violation of the right to life and international policing standards," said Joe Stork, deputy director of the Human Rights Watch's Middle East and northern Africa division.

Since 2006, more than 130,000 refugees, asylum seekers and other migrants have passed though Egypt and crossed the Sinai border into Israel, according to the report. African migrants have complained about the difficulty of social and economic integration in Egypt. In December 2005, the police attacked thousands of Sudanese refugee protesters who were camped in the street to pressure the UN to relocate them to another country.  The attack, which left at least 20 dead, is still perceived as the most scandalous evidence of the mistreatment of African refugees

In fact, the Sinai border is a perilous region rife with weapons and drug smugglers. The Egyptian government has long been criticized by Israel for failing to prevent weapons smuggling to Gazan militants through Sinai tunnels. 

“We recognize that Sinai is a dangerous place," Van Esveld said, "but in the cases we investigated, there was no threat being posed by the people who were shot at.”

As a member of the paramilitary force known as the Sons of Iraq, whose foot soldiers man checkpoints and work alongside U.S. and Iraqi troops across Iraq, Surmad Mahmoud Jundi earns $300 a month. As a full-fledged member of the Iraqi police or military, he would get at least twice that, along with extra money for hazardous duty.

It's no wonder, then, that Jundi is impatient to make the leap from being a Son of Iraq to being a cop of Iraq, and his frustrations were clear as he stood in line under a warm autumn sun to receive his monthly pay. Jundi was one of thousands of Sons of Iraq to be paid by Iraqi officials for the first time this week as the Iraqi government takes command of the force, which had been paid and managed by the U.S. military.

The Iraqi payout, which began Monday in Baghdad, seemed to go smoothly, but the impatience exhibited by Jundi and several other Sons of Iraq is a warning sign of what may lie ahead if the Iraqi government does not fulfill its vow to find jobs for these men.

"So far all we've gotten is promises that we'll get hired here or there, but nothing," said Jundi as other men in line around him joined in the complaints. "There's nothing tangible" to hold on to for the future, said Younis Abdullah Sukhairi. "We don't have any faith." They said they trusted the U.S. forces but not Iraq's government.

The mutual distrust between the mainly Shiite Muslim government and the mainly Sunni Arab Sons of Iraq is at the root of several problems that could derail the program, which is credited with helping bring down violence nationwide. A year ago, there were about 24 attacks per day on U.S. and Iraqi forces and Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. William Grimsley. Now, there are about four attacks per day, said Grimsley, who called the Sons of Iraq "hugely important" in bringing down violence.