News From Iraq

-More Iraqi civilians appear to have been killed in July than in any other month of the war, according to national and morgue statistics, suggesting that the much-vaunted Baghdad security plan started in June by the new government had failed. An average of more than 110 Iraqis were killed per day in July, according to figures from Iraq's Health Ministry and the Baghdad morgue. At least 3,438 civilians died violently that month, a 9 percent increase over the total in June and nearly twice as many as in January. DETAILS

-Revealing the first major crack in the fragile unity government, the speaker of Parliament said Monday that he was considering stepping down because of bitter enmity among the Kurdish and Shiite political blocs. The speaker is the third-ranking official in Iraq and a conservative Sunni Arab. DETAILS

-One policeman was killed and three people were wounded, including one civilian, when a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol exploded in a bus garage in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. DETAILS

- Fierce gunbattles broke out Tuesday between armed supporters of an anti-U.S. Shiite cleric and Iraqi security forces after a raid on his office in this southern holy city, leaving many people injured, officials and witnesses said. DETAILS

-A suicide truck bomber killed eight Kurdish guards in an attack on the Iraqi president's party offices in the north of the country, while police clashed with Shiite militia in the south. DETAILS

-A Suicide bomber on Tuesday exploded a truck rigged with a bomb outside the Iraqi president's party headquarters in a northern city, killing five people and wounding 15, police said. DETAILS