Iraqi Leader Takes Charge Of Offensive in Mosul

BAGHDAD — Prime Minister al-Maliki took personal charge yesterday of a military operation to rout Al Qaeda in Iraq in what America has described as the terror group's last major stronghold, even as a tenuous cease-fire took hold over Baghdad's Sadr City slum. The campaign in the northern city of Mosul was the third by Mr. Maliki in two months as he attempts to stamp out Shiite militants and Sunni extremists across the country.

Also yesterday, a suicide bomber killed 22 people and wounded 40 in an attack on a funeral tent in a village west of Baghdad, Iraqi police Colonel Faisal al-Zubaie said.