Baghdad - Baghdad is not seeking to buy advanced Russian weapons systems, an Iraqi government spokesman said Monday, denying earlier reports. "Iraq does not want to buy heavy, advanced weapons from Russia," spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told Baghdad's al-Iraqia television Monday.

Any reports to the contrary were "absolutely untrue," al-Dabbagh said, adding that budget cuts and Iraq's current security requirements precluded the purchase of advanced fighter jets or air defence systems.

Baghdad - In a surprise visit, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday arrived in Arbil, the capital of the Kurdish Autonomous Region in northern Iraq, Iraqi national television reported. Abbas arrived from Saudi Arabia, but had been in Baghdad last week. His visit to Baghdad was the first by a Palestinian president since the US-led invasion in 2003.

Last week in Baghdad, Abbas discussed the Middle East peace process and the situation of Palestinian refugees stranded on the Syrian-Iraqi border.

Baghdad - Iraq's National Reconciliation Minister said Iraq will hold a meeting later this month to discuss the participation of former Baath party members in politics, a local newspaper said Sunday. "The Iraqi government seeks to hold a meeting to resolve this sensitive issue and to form a unified national stance to the issue," Minister Akram al-Hakim told state-controlled al-Sabah newspaper.

Baghdad - A suicide attack in southern Iraq on Saturday killed at least nine members of a Sunni group aligned with US forces and injured 30 members of the group, the al-Jazeera news channel reported. A suicide bomber targeted the headquarters of the Iraqi army in al-Askandariyah city in Babil province, where he blew up himself among a gathering of Sahwa fighters, or members of Iraq's so-called "Awakening Councils."

The victims had been collecting their monthly wages at the time of the attack, according to al-Jazeera.

Mosul , Iraq - A truck bomb targeting a police station in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Friday killed five US soldiers and two Iraqi soldiers, the US military said. Police said a man drove a truck through the security barrier surrounding the Iraqi National Police headquarters in southwest Mosul on Friday, then detonated explosives packed in the vehicle.

The blast also wounded 20 Iraqi security officers and one US soldier, the US military said in a statement.

Baghdad - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Thursday left Baghdad for Moscow at the beginning of a tour of European countries that Baghdad hopes will drum up investment in Iraq.

Al-Maliki hopes to sign two agreements on economic cooperation between Iraq and Russia over the course of his three-day visit to the country, according to a government statement run in Baghdad's al- Sabbah newspaper Thursday morning.

He is also expected to discuss the return to Iraq of Russian companies, particularly those working in petroleum, water, and electric infrastructure, the newspaper said.