Gunmen kidnapped 10 people in two villages in northern Iraq today, but US and Iraqi forces rescued seven of them in a gun battle, police said.

Iraqis voted in a historic parliamentary election today, with strong turnout reported in Sunni Arab areas that had shunned the election last January.

Two United States Army soldiers died of wounds sustained during an offensive in western Iraq, the military said today.

AL-QAIDA in Iraq has urged supporters to intensify attacks on US and Iraqi forces during the holy month of Ramadan, which began yesterday, and called for a boycott of next week’s constitutional referendum.

The US military today launched a major offensive in a cluster of cities in the Euphrates River valley aimed at insurgents who were using the area as a safe haven and who had killed 20 Marines there in August.

US marines and Iraqi troops pounded insurgents with bombs and tank cannons yesterday during a major offensive along a stretch of the Euphrates River valley where 22 marines were killed this week.

Militants killed five US Marines, and authorities found 21 bodies near the Syrian border, where American and Iraqi troops bore down in two recent major operations aimed at crushing a tenacious insurgency.

FIVE US Marines have been killed in a roadside bomb blast in western Iraq.

Insurgents in western Iraq killed five US Marines and sliced the heads off three Iraqis, part of a group of 21 men whose bodies were found dumped in the desert near the Syrian border after being gagged and shot.

Five US Marines have been killed in a roadside bomb blast in western Iraq, the military said today.

US forces have conducted a raid to capture a "high value target" associated with Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in an area north-west of Baghdad and detained three people.

Rebels launched a wave of deadly attacks against police stations in Iraq's western Anbar province for the second day in a row today, killing at least 22 people.