British soldiers from the Joint Force Explosive Ordance Disposal, 49 Field Squadron, take cover beside their armored vehicle as they detonate a unexploded bomb found south of Basra, near the Kuwaiti border, Feb. 7, 2004. Unexploded ordnance remain scattered around Iraq following last year's war which saw the fall of Saddam Hussein.
An Iraqi man prays next to three skulls and other human remains exhumed at a mass grave found in the Iraqi village of Kifai, near the southern Shiite town of Najaf, Feb. 8, 2004.
Bags of bodies and remains exhumed from mass graves, Kifal, near Najaf, Iraq.
Iraqi police survey the damage at their police station, Feb. 8, 2004, where a a bomb exploded the day before, killing three policemen and injuring 11 others, in Suwayrah town, 30 miles south of Baghdad. It was unclear who planted the bomb, which left a large hole in the floor of the station and caused extensive damage inside.
A convoy of Japanese troops in their armored vehicles travel from Nasiriyah to their would-be camp in Samawah in southern Iraq, Feb. 8, 2004, after crossing the border from Kuwait. The first troops of a main Japanese army contingent arrived with the Japanese public deeply divided over the nation's first military dispatch to a war zone, their first since World War II.
Iraqi men look out from their shop selling religious items including plates with the image of Shiite Muslim cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, in the Iraqi city of Najaf, Feb. 6, 2004.
Members of the Nevada Army National Guardsmen 777th Engineer Utility team pour cement for a foundation near Baghdad, in the fall of 2003. The unit has described their experiences through a series of e-mail accounts recently published in the Lahontan Valley News and Fallon Eagle Standard.
A U.S. military helicopter passes over Baghdad, Iraq, at sunset, Feb. 4, 2004.
U.S. Army Sgt. Michael Encabo of the Charlie Company, 16 Infantry, 1st Armored Division, and originally from Nueva Ecija, Philippines, hands the magazine of an AK-47 rifle to his colleague as an Iraqi man at center presents its license at a mobile checkpoint conducted in a Baghdad street, Feb. 4, 2004.
An Iraqi boy, riding on his father's shoulders, kisses the door of the Kadhimiya shrine in Baghdad as they enter for noon-time prayers on the last day of the four-day Eid al-Adha, or Feast of Sacrifice, Feb. 4, 2004. The feast commemorates the Quranic account of God allowing the patriarch Abraham to sacrifice a sheep instead of his son Ismail.
U.S. Army Sgt. John Rhodes of the Charlie Company, 16 Infantry, 1st Armored Division, frisks an Iraqi commuter at a mobile checkpoint set up along a Baghdad street, Feb. 4, 2004. Watching at right is PFC Dustin Reeves.
Unidentified officials of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, greet wellwishers, Feb. 1. 2004, in Irbil, northern Iraq on the first day of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha. Within minutes of this image being taken a suicide bomber blew himself up in front of the officials seen here.
Iraqis in Baghdad smoke on traditional water pipes known as Nargelah, Feb. 3, 2004, as they celebrate the four-day holiday of Eid al Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice.
A U.S. soldier from the 1st Armored Division, right, watches as a new Iraqi Army soldier searches Iraqi commuters at a mobile checkpoint in Baghdad, Feb. 3, 2004. The new Army is slowly beginning to assume the task of securing the capital following their training by U.S. troops.
Shiite Muslims pilgrims visit a shrine in the Iraqi city of Samarra, Feb. 2, 2004. Samarra, a Sunni heartland city and hotbed of anti-coalition resistance, is the unlikely home of a major Shiite shrine that once housed a key seat of Islamic learning.
A seriously wounded Iraqi Kurdish man is watched over by a woman, a day after he suffered wounds in one of two suicide bombing attacks at holiday political gatherings, killing 67 people, in the northern Iraqi Kurdish city of Irbil, Feb. 2, 2004. In addition to those killed, more than 200 were also injured in the attacks.
An Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighter keeps guard from the roof of a mosque, Feb. 2, 2004, while inside mourners attended a wake for those killed in two suicide bombing attacks at holiday political gatherings, in the northern Iraqi Kurdish city of Irbil. About 70 people were killed, and more than 200 were injured in the attacks.
Peshmergas with the Kurdistan Democratic Party walk through the room inside the KDP headquarters in Irbil, Iraq, Feb. 2, 2004, where a suicide bombing took place during a meeting for the feast of Eid al Adha. The bombing was one of two near-simultaneous attacks against both Kurdish political parties.