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US President Barack Obama has declared that American troops will leave Iraq this month "with honour and with their heads held high", while at the same time warning the country's neighbours not to interfere in its progress. In a press conference with Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister, at the White House on Monday, Obama said: "This is a historic moment. A war is ending." The president also said that the US would leave behind a sovereign and self-reliant Iraq, and that the removal of troops after nearly nine years would begin a new chapter in the relationship between the two countries - warning neighbouring nations not to interfere. "Our strong presence in the Middle East endures," Obama said. "And the United States will never waver in the defence of our allies, our partners and our interests."  "That is the concern, that at the end of the day the Iraqi officials have much closer ties to the Iranians." Obama ...

"We mounted a complex operation with unprecedented speed and conducted it with the greatest of care," Rasmussen said. "I'm very proud of what we have achieved."  NATO also called an end to its air war in Libya. At an understated and sparsely-attended news conference late on Friday (October 21, 2011), NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the Western alliance had taken a preliminary decision to call a halt to Operation Unified Protector on October 31.  Like other Western officials, Rasmussen expressed no regrets in public about the gruesome death of the deposed Libyan dictator, who was captured alive by the forces of the National Transitional Council but was brought dead to a hospital.  The NATO operation, officially intended to protect civilians, effectively ended on Thursday with French warplanes blasting Gaddafi's convoy as he and others tried to escape a final stand in Sirte.  NTC officials have said Gaddafi later died of wo...