Suicide bombings in Baghdad and Mosul took the lives of at least 32 Iraqis Nov. 1. The following day, three separate attacks in Mosul—two car bombs, including one at a crowded market, and an armed assault on Sunni Arab political leaders—left at least 11 dead and 41 injured. The attacks come amid a power struggle between Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and the Kurdish regional government over al-Maliki's proposal to create new tribal councils that would answer to his government. Kurds are trying to expand their autonomous zone in the north, and Kurdish leaders fear the new councils could become local militias that the government could use against them in the north. (NYT, Dec. 3; DPA, Dec. 2; NYT, Dec. 1)

A suicide bomber struck during Friday prayers at a Shi'ite mosque in Musaib, south of Baghdad, killing nine worshippers and injuring 15 the day after Iraq's parliament approved a pact allowing US troops to remain until 2011. The mosque was affiliated with Moqtada al-Sadr, who had just declared three days of mourning to protest the accord. Among those killed was an old woman begging for alms at the mosque's entrance. In July 2005, more than 70 were killed at the same mosque when a suicide bomber detonated a truck loaded with explosives and cooking gas near the building.

President George Bush hailed the Iraqi parliament's approval of a landmark accord for US troops to remain in the country in three years—but a popular referendum on the deal was included in the legislation. As part of political bargaining before the vote, the Baghdad government agreed to demands by Sunni parties to hold a referendum on the accord no later than July 30. Even if the accord is voted down, Baghdad would have to give Washington one year's notice, meaning that troops would be allowed to remain in the country only until the summer of 2010. (AFP, Nov. 27)

From the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), Nov. 3:

To the Kurdish Parliament and the Kurdistan Regional Government:

We demand the repeal of polygamous marriages and all other discriminatory laws against women in Kurdistan.

Much has been made of the fact that the bomber was a woman, but note that the victims were overwhelmingly women as well. From The Guardian, Nov. 25:

Woman in suicide attack as 19 die in Baghdad bombings
A volley of explosions killed 19 people in Baghdad yesterday, including five who were caught up in a suicide attack by a woman whose bomb vest was apparently detonated remotely.

Shi'te followers of Moqtada al-Sadr protested Nov. 21 in Baghdad, defacing and burning an effigy of President George Bush in a display of contempt for a deal struck between the departing US administration and the Iraqi government to keep US troops in the country for another three years. The protest drew thousands of people to Firdous Square, where a statue of Saddam Hussein was torn down and destroyed five years ago in the wake of the invasion.

Iraq's cabinet Nov. 16 approved a security pact with the US that will allow American forces to stay for three years after their UN mandate expires at the end of the year. The decision follows months of negotiations and, pending parliamentary approval, would remove a major point of contention between Baghdad and Washington. Parliament's deputy speaker, Khalid al-Attiyah, said he expected the 275-member legislature to begin debating the document this week and vote on it by Nov 24.

Headlines from Iraq Nov. 12 were dominated by the re-opening of Baghdad's Two Imams Bridge, which links the Sunni district of Adhamiya and the Shi'ite area of Kadhimiya, and had been closed due to sectarian violence since 2005. (E.g. LAT) But on that same day, at least 23 people were killed in a string of attacks across Iraq. In the deadliest single attack of the day, a car bomb exploded, followed by another blast at a bus station in a working class district of Baghdad, killing 12 and wounding 60.