SUICIDE bombers struck near three hotels popular with Western journalists and businessmen yesterday just as Iraq announced the execution of Saddam Hussein’s notorious cousin known as “Chemical Ali”.

Iraq’s top security chiefs faced MPs behind closed doors today to answer for security lapses that allowed a third attack since the summer against government sites in the Iraqi capital.

Iraq’s Higher Judicial Council today said a senior judge was assassinated while travelling in eastern Baghdad.

A woman suicide bomber blew herself up outside the offices of an anti-al-Qaida group in Iraq today killing at least 15 people in one of the country’s most violent provinces.

AN IRAQI traffic policeman told yesterday how Blackwater security guards caused carnage when they opened fire on civilians in Baghdad, as a senior officer probing the shooting insisted it was unprovoked.

More than 50 gunmen dressed in Iraqi security forces uniforms broke into an oil ministry compound in Baghdad today and abducted a senior deputy of the oil minister and four other officials, a ministry spokesman and police said.

The bodies of Saddam Hussein’s sons and a grandson have been exhumed and reburied near the ousted Iraqi leader’s grave in his hometown north of Baghdad.

The Iraqi government and Arab countries are engaged in bitter squabbling on the eve of a Baghdad conference that America hoped would finally unite them in efforts to stabilise the war-torn nation.

The bodies of 14 Iraqi security officers were found dead today after a militant group claimed to have kidnapped them, Iraq’s Interior Ministry said.

An Iraqi court today raised the sentence against Saddam Hussein’s vice president to death by hanging for the killings of Shiites in the town of Dujail.

The half-brother of Saddam Hussein and the former head of Iraq’s Revolutionary Court were hanged before dawn today, two weeks and two days after the former dictator was executed in a disturbing scene that drew worldwide criticism.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani today called for the execution of two of Saddam Hussein’s co-defendants to be delayed.

Support for Saddam Hussein across the Arab world has grown since his execution, galvanising anger against Iraq’s Shiite-led government, which the United States has hoped the region would support.

US TROOPS should begin withdrawing from combat and Washington should launch a diplomatic and political push to halt a “grave and deteriorating” crisis in Iraq, a high-level panel studying the war said yesterday.

Saddam Hussein’s lawyers have formally appealed against his death sentence for the killing of 148 Shiites.

Saddam Hussein’s lawyers today appealed the death sentence against their toppled Iraqi leader, accusing the court of trying to delay the process.

Funeral processions began today for the people who were killed by car bombs and mortars in Baghdad’s largest Shiite district, the deadliest attack since the war began.

Gunmen kidnapped the head of Iraq’s Olympic committee and at least 30 employees today after storming a meeting of sports officials just days after the coach of Iraq’s national wrestling team was killed.

In a bid to curb sectarian violence, Iraq’s government plans to restructure the capital’s security forces by putting all police officers and paramilitary soldiers under one commander.

A bomb hidden in a parked minibus exploded in Baghdad’s main wholesale market today, killing two Iraqis and wounding five.

Iraq’s main Sunni Arab political coalition today challenged preliminary results from last week’s parliamentary elections and warned that any attempt to falsify the outcome could further destabilise the country.

Saddam Hussein today declared himself not guilty of alleged crimes against fellow Iraqis, turning immediately argumentative and challenging the legitimacy of the court as he appeared before a five-judge tribunal in the former headquarters of his Baath Party two years after his capture.

Saddam Hussein went on trial today for alleged crimes against fellow Iraqis, turning immediately argumentative as he appeared in a tightly secured courtroom in the former headquarters of his Baath Party two years after his capture.

Proceedings in the trial of Iraq’s former leader Saddam Hussein were delayed today for an unknown reason.

A SANDSTORM that closed Baghdad’s airport cleared yesterday, allowing officials to resume flying ballot boxes to the capital so “unusually high” vote totals in 12 Shiite and Kurdish provinces can be checked by election officials.

US warplanes and helicopters bombed two western Iraq villages, killing an estimated 70 militants near a site where five American soldiers died in a weekend roadside blast, the military said today.

US defence officials in Washington today confirmed that Abu Azzam, a leading deputy to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida’s leader in Iraq, has been killed.

A suicide bomber attacked a group of Iraqis applying for jobs as policemen today, killing nine and wounding 23.

US and Iraqi authorities freed 500 detainees from the notorious Abu Ghraib prison yesterday in a goodwill gesture to Sunnis ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, as insurgents killed at least 10 people with a suicide bomb targeting police and government workers.

A leading Sunni cleric called for religious and ethnic groups to take a stand against violence as Iraq endured a third consecutive day of sectarian killings - the worst, a suicide car bombing at a Shiite mosque that killed at least 12 worshippers.

Under intense US pressure, the head of Iraq’s constitution commission today said the group could finish the constitution by August 15 if political leaders overcame their differences.

FORMER Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein faces a range of charges from gassing thousands of Kurds to executing political and religious leaders, a list of the cases against him showed yesterday.

Former Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein faces a range of charges from gassing thousands of Kurds to executing political and religious leaders, a list of the cases against him showed today.

One day after Iraq’s National Assembly approved the country’s first democratically-elected government, insurgents launched a series of attacks in the country today, killing at least 14 Iraqis and wounding 50, officials said.

Recent information links one of Saddam Hussein’s most notorious former generals to the massacres of Shiites in southern Iraq, a human rights group said today.

Iraqis may have to wait weeks to learn the winners of this weekend’s election, with guerrilla attacks and other factors expected to slow the vote tally, a foreign election adviser in said today.

Iraq’s most feared terror chief declared a “fierce war” on democracy in a new audio recording posted on the internet today, as insurgents attacked another polling station to be used in next weekend’s landmark elections.

Iraq’s Oil Ministry has awarded its first contract since the fall of Saddam Hussein, choosing a British, Turkish and local company to develop a northern oil field.

A BRAZEN attack in the heart of Baghdad with rebels executing election workers in cold blood was a chilling reminder of the deteriorating security situation in the capital ahead of parliamentary elections on January 30.

A senior official of Iraq’s Sciences and Technology Ministry and a female employee of the ministry were assassinated today, the Interior Ministry said.

US warplanes pounded the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah and a northern town astride a major smuggling route today, killing dozens of people in the two attacks.

Ahmad Chalabi, a former governing council member wanted in Iraq on counterfeiting charges, has returned to the country to face the charges, an official from his political party said today.

Kidnappers released a senior Egyptian diplomat they had seized outside a mosque as two other militant groups threatened to kill four new foreign hostages amid an increasingly audacious wave of kidnappings in Iraq.