Baghdad’s streets are nearly empty on Monday, the main day of polling in the country’s first provincial elections in a decade.

Iraqis have begun voting for the first time in a decade to select new provincial council members, who in turn will appoint governors, with the outcome seen as a bellwether for the parliamentary elections due to take place in 2025.

Denmark’s foreign minister says the government will seek to make it illegal to desecrate the Quran or other holy books in front of foreign embassies.

Thousands of people took to the streets in a handful of Muslim-majority countries to express their outrage at the desecration of a copy of the Quran in Sweden.

Protesters angered by an Iraqi man in Sweden who threatened to burn a copy of the Quran stormed the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad.

Influential Iraqi Shiite cleric and political leader Muqtada al-Sadr says he will suspend the movement he leads for one year, citing “corruption” among some of his followers.

Angry protesters in several Middle Eastern countries have gathered to denounce the recent desecration of Islam’s holy book by far-right activists in Sweden and the Netherlands.

An influential Iraqi cleric who announced his withdrawal from politics four months ago has broken a period of relative silence to launch an anti-LGBTQ campaign.

Iraqi lawmakers elected a new president in a key step toward ending a year-long political vacuum.

Four security officers have been wounded as four rockets landed in Baghdad's Green Zone government area.

Iraqi security officials say four militiamen have been killed in reprisal attacks between rival Shiite militia groups.

Iraqi paramilitary forces killed in heavy clashes have been laid to rest as the country's parliament speaker called for three days of mourning for the dozens killed.

Iraq witnessed bloody street violence for nearly 24 hours spurred by loyalists of a powerful Shiite cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, that was the culmination of a 10-month power struggle.

Armed supporters of a powerful Iraqi cleric who clashed with security forces in the capital have begun to withdraw from the streets.

An influential Shiite cleric announced that he will resign from Iraqi politics, and hundreds of his angry followers responded by storming the government palace.

Iraq’s caretaker prime minister has warned that the political crisis in the country is threatening security achievements made in past years.

Iraq’s top judicial body says it doesn't have the authority to dissolve the country’s parliament.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have held a mass prayer called for by an influential Shiite cleric in Baghdad, a highly symbolic move amid an unprecedented political crisis roiling Iraq.

Residents of the impoverished Baghdad suburb of Sadr City say they support an influential Shiite cleric who called on thousands of his followers to storm Iraq's parliament.

Thousands of Shiites gathered in Baghdad for a counter-rally called by Iran-backed groups against their rival, an influential cleric whose followers are staging a sit-in inside the Iraqi parliament, have left the area.

Hundreds of followers of an influential Shiite cleric are camped out inside Iraq's parliament after toppling security walls around the building and storming in the previous day.

Thousands of followers of an influential Shiite cleric have stormed into Iraq's parliament to protest government formation efforts led by his rivals from Iran-backed groups.

Followers of Iraq's influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr came by the thousands to storm the country's parliament at his command, and they rapidly dispersed with little violence.

Hundreds of Iraqi protesters have breached Baghdad’s parliament, chanting anti-Iran curses in a demonstration against a nominee for prime minister by Iran-backed parties.

Iraq’s caretaker prime minister, whose country is mired in political crisis, says it is in Iraq’s interest to keep pushing for a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia to ease regional tensions.

Dozens of lawmakers who make up the biggest bloc in Iraq's parliament have resigned amid a prolonged political impasse.

Iraq still doesn’t have a government, eight months since national elections took place, and there seems no clear way out of the dangerous deadlock.

Iraqi lawmakers have passed a bill criminalizing any normalization of ties and any relations, including business ties, with Israel.

Iraq’s new parliament has reelected its speaker for a second term, the first step toward forming a new government after a general election whose results have been contested by powerful Iran-backed factions.

Troops and patrols have deployed around Baghdad following the failed assassination attempt with armed drones that targeted Iraq’s prime minister in his residence.

Pro-Iran Shiite militias that emerged as the biggest losers in Iraq's parliamentary elections three weeks ago are still rejecting the outcome of the vote.

Iraqis have voted in parliamentary elections held months ahead of schedule as a concession to a youth-led uprising against corruption and mismanagement.

Iraq’s prime minister says his country no longer requires U.S. combat troops to fight the Islamic State group.

Followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, in the posters, gather in Tahrir Square, Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, Nov. 27, 2020. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)BAGHDAD – Supporters of a firebrand Iraqi cleric shot dead five people on Saturday, according to medical officials, in overnight clashes with anti-government protesters in southern Iraq. Following the clashes beginning on Friday, al-Sadr’s supporters stormed Haboubi square, and torched tents pitched in the square. Anti-government protesters feel betrayed by al-Sadr’s flip-flop approach toward them, especially in the last few months when he withdrew support for their movement. Dozens returned to the anti-government sit-in's site on Saturday morning in support of those protesters killed overnight.

(CNN) - Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi has agreed to resign after weeks of anti-government protests that led to hundreds of casualties, Iraq's president announced Thursday. In a televised speech to the nation on Iraq's Al-Iraqiya TV, President Barham Salih said Abdul Mahdi had agreed to step down on the condition that a successor is agreed to replace him. "The prime minister has agreed to resign," Salih said, adding that Abdul Mahdi had asked "political blocs to reach an acceptable alternative" in order "to prevent a vacuum." One of Iraq's leading Shiite clerics and most powerful politicians, Muqtada al-Sadr, had called on other parties Tuesday to back his push for a no-confidence vote in Abdul Mahdi. The protests, which have gripped parts of Iraq for the past month, were sparked by longstanding complaints over unemployment, government corruption, and a lack of basic services.