Al-Jazeera resumes full coverage from Iraq

Al-Jazeera said it had resumed full coverage from Iraq after Baghdad backed down on expelling two of its correspondents.

Al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite TV whose graphic war footage has drawn US criticism, said on Friday it had resumed full coverage from Iraq after Baghdad backed down on expelling two of its correspondents.

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The Qatar-based channel said in a statement that Iraq's information ministry had informed its Baghdad bureau that "our correspondents in the Iraqi capital Diyar al-Umari and Tayseer Alluni are no longer forbidden from working."

Al-Jazeera on Thursday protested the threatened action and stopped work by all its reporters in Iraq, although it continued to air pictures from its three offices in Iraq: Baghdad, Basra in the south, and the northern town of Mosul.

The channel resumed full coverage on Friday at 1745 GMT. Al-Jazeera had said the information ministry did not give reasons for the action against its correspondents.

US officials have accused Al-Jazeera of presenting a one-sided version of the US-led war to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and were furious when it aired pictures of POWs and the bloodied bodies of US troops.

But Al-Jazeera remains popular around the Arab world and has reported a 10-percent jump in viewer figures - to 44 million - since the March 10 start of the war.