Iraq Developments

The latest developments in Iraq:

U.S. and Iraqi troops moved against al-Qaida on two separate fronts Thursday, with house-to-house searches in Mosul and an operation in the desert to stanch the flow of insurgents and weapons to that northern city. With the new sweep, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is aiming to put down Sunni extremists after launching two other major offensives elsewhere in as many months targeting Shiite militants.

Three employees of the Iranian embassy and their Iraqi driver were shot and wounded as they traveled Thursday to the Shiite Kadhemiyah Shrine in northern Baghdad. As the Iranian men pulled into a Shiite area in Baghdad on the way to the shrine, two men on a motorbike pulled up to the vehicle and riddled their car with bullets, Iranian and Iraqi officials said.

Source: Combined dispatches