What's Happening in Iraq

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The NATO military alliance doesn't only need to reinforce its own armed forces, it also must also come to the aid of partner nations in the Middle East and North Africa that are threatened by extremist violence, NATO's chief said Friday.

As Congress considers whether women should have to register for the draft, a new poll by The Economist/YouGov finds that by a slim margin, women don’t think women should have to sign up with the Selective Service, as young men have to do when they turn 18.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Friday dismissed three top officials in charge of Baghdad's security after a bombing over the weekend killed nearly 300 people and caused outrage at the inadequacy of emergency services and the security apparatus. A statement posted on his Facebook page said he had fired the commander of military operations, security services and intelligence in the capital. The bombing, claimed by the militant group Islamic State, was the deadliest bombing in Iraq since U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein 13 years ago.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi sacked the head of the Baghdad security command and other officials after a bombing in the capital killed 292 people, his office said on Friday. Abadi issued "an order to relieve the Baghdad Operations commander of his position, and relieving security and intelligence officials in Baghdad of their positions," a statement said. The head of the Baghdad Operations Command was Lieutenant General Abdulamir al-Shimmari, but the premier's office did not identify the other officials who were removed.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — For NATO, its two-day summit beginning Friday may be the most crucial since the Cold War. Alliance leaders will tackle an unprecedentedly complex set of challenges in search of ways to better guarantee their nations' security. Here are some key challenges, and what NATO heads of state and government are expected to do about each:

By Paul Taylor and Ayesha Rascoe WARSAW (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama urged NATO leaders on Friday to stand firm against a resurgent Russia over its seizure of Crimea from Ukraine, saying Britain's vote to leave the European Union should not weaken the western defense alliance. In an article published in London's Financial Times newspaper as he arrived for his last summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation before leaving office in January, Obama said America's "special relationship" with Britain would survive the referendum vote he had sought to avoid.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan called on NATO to do more to fight the threat of global terrorism, saying the 28-nation alliance needed to "update" itself to better adapt to new security threats. NATO leaders are meeting at a summit in Warsaw on Friday where they are expected to display their resolve towards a resurgent Russia - despite what some see as a weakening of the West due to Britain's vote to leave the European Union. Speaking to reporters before his departure to Warsaw late on Thursday, Erdogan said he would press the leaders of fellow NATO countries to do more to fight militant attacks like the triple suicide bombing last week that killed 45 people at Istanbul's main airport.

Australia will pay an extra $300 million to help develop Afghanistan's security forces, the government said on Friday ahead of a NATO leaders' summit in Warsaw, where tenuous security in Afghanistan will be a central discussion topic. Australia, a firm U.S. ally in its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, had originally pledged $500 million from 2010-2017 but will now provide an extra $100 million annually until 2020. The announcement of extra funding came two days after U.S. President Barack Obama said he had decided to postpone plans to cut the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan almost in half by the end of the year, instead keeping 8,400 troops there from January.

Oil prices rebounded on Friday, bouncing off two-month lows hit in the previous session when prices fell 5 percent on news that the U.S. weekly crude draw missed some forecasts. Traders said that the outlook looked volatile as a refined product glut and slowing economic growth weighed on markets while the risk of supply disruptions could tighten supplies. The bounce came after a 5 percent fall in prices the previous sessions, to two-month lows, after the U.S. government reported a weekly draw in crude oil inventories that was lower than many analysts had expected.

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Friday:

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs analysis, which shows the suicide rate among veterans climbing over the past 15 years, is based on millions of records and is touted as the government's most comprehensive examination of the issue to date. President Barack Obama has joined veterans groups in singling out as a national priority the prevention of suicide among veterans, who the study says are at a 21 percent greater risk of taking their own lives than other Americans. Of the veterans known to have committed suicide in 2014, the latest year for which such data was available, 65 percent were at least 50 years of age, old enough to have served in the 1990-91 Gulf War, the Vietnam War or previous conflicts.

Nineteen people, including 12 Pakistani nationals, have been arrested in Saudi Arabia following suicide attacks on Monday, including one near Islam's second-holiest site in the city of Medina, the kingdom's Interior Ministry said on Thursday. Seven people are believed to have been killed and two wounded in three separate attacks -- in Medina, at a Shiite mosque in Qatif, and in western Jeddah, the economic capital, not far from the US consulate. A 26-year-old Saudi man, Naer Moslem Hammad al-Balawi, who had a "history of drug use" had been identified as the perpetrator of the Medina attack, the ministry said in a statement published by the official SPA news agency.

Saudi Arabia said a suicide bomber who attacked Prophet Mohammed's Mosque in the city of Medina on Monday was a 26-year-old Saudi citizen with a history of drug abuse. Twelve Pakistanis and seven Saudis have been detained in relation to attacks that day. Naer Muslim Hamad crossed a parking lot next to the prophet's mosque in Medina and detonated an explosive belt near a security headquarters, killing four soldiers, the state news agency SPA quoted an Interior Ministry spokesman as saying.