BAGHDAD – Under a blanket of tight security designed to thwart insurgent attacks, Iraqis went to the polls today in an election testing the ability of the country’s still-fragile democracy to move forward amid uncertainty over a looming U.S. troop drawdown and still jagged sectarian divisions.

BAGHDAD – Staff Sgt. James Rivera saw the Toyota pickup careening out of control. First it swerved into incoming traffic and clipped a car. Then it bounced over a curb, hit a street sign and plunged into a lake. Rivera parked his van and sprinted from his vehicle. He ran through head-high reeds on the edge of Z Lake on Baghdad’s Victory Base Complex and jumped into the water.

BAGHDAD – A key al-Qaida in Iraq figure involved in smuggling hundreds of suicide bombers across the border from Syria has been killed in a raid in northern Iraq, the U.S. military said Thursday.