A STRING of bombings in Iraqi cities - including one by a man with explosives strapped to his body - killed more than 60 people and wounded more than 100 yesterday.

A string of bombings in Iraqi cities – including one by a man with explosives strapped to his body – killed more than 60 people and wounded more than 100 today as US troops pushed on in an offensive aimed at followers of Iraq’s most-wanted terrorist.

The apparent kidnapping of a Japanese man by a militant group in Iraq will not affect Tokyo’s troop deployment there, Japan’s defence chief said today as officials vowed to make every effort to win his release.

Iraqi militants claimed today they took a Japanese security contractor hostage after ambushing a convoy of foreigners and Iraqi troops in western Iraq.

Iraq was hit by a new wave of attacks targeting security forces today, killing at least 20 people in Baghdad.

Eleven Iraqis and a US Marine were killed in election violence today as insurgents clashed with US troops and blew up a school slated to serve as a polling centre.

Two Iraqis who set up an internet system in have been executed by an rebel group and their deaths shown on a videotape posted on a website today.

A suicide car bomb exploded outside an Iraqi police academy during a graduation ceremony today, killing 20 people amid a surge in violence ahead of a landmark election.

Three militant groups warned Iraqis against voting in the January 30 elections, saying that people participating in the “dirty farce” risked attack.

At least 25 insurgents were killed by US troops and warplanes in northern Iraq as they attacked an American outpost with a car bomb and explosives, the US military said today.

Nine people died and 14 were seriously wounded in a gas tanker explosion in west Baghdad just hours after a surprise visit to the Iraqi capital by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

A gas tanker truck wired with explosives blew up in a west Baghdad neighbourhood, killing one person, wounding 19 and lighting up the night sky with a fireball just hours after US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld left the Iraqi capital.

The suspected suicide attack inside a US Army mess hall in Iraq represents a breach of the most basic principles of military security and points to significant weaknesses in the screening of Iraqis who are allowed onto the base, US experts say.

The US army swept through the Iraqi city of Mosul today after after an insurgent strike on a military base killed 22 people and injured 72 in one of the deadliest attacks on American troops since the war began.

The US military launched an investigation today into the cause of a devastating blast in a mess tent at a base in northern Iraq which killed 22 people and injured 72 in one of the deadliest attacks since the start of the war.

On the day of a deadly attack against US troops, Iraq’s finance minister said he saw signs of improvement in his country’s security.

Four election officials who received death threats have left Mosul, stalling preparations for the vote in the northern Iraqi city.

Gunmen kidnapped a Lebanese-American businessman – the second US citizen seized this week in Baghdad – and militants released a tape showing the beheading of an Iraqi officer as a warning to those who deal with “the infidel” Americans.

Gunmen in Iraq kidnapped a Lebanese-American businessman today – the second US citizen seized this week in Baghdad – as the country’s almost daily routine of kidnapping and murder continued.

Gunmen stormed the compound of a Saudi company in a fashionable Baghdad neighbourhood, seizing an American, a Nepalese and four Iraqis after a gun battle in which a guard and one of the attackers were killed.

Gunmen assassinated Baghdad’s deputy governor today as a fresh brigade of American soldiers arrived in the capital – reinforcements that will push US military strength in Iraq to its highest level since the summer of 2003.

Insurgents slaughtered 11 Iraqi soldiers, beheading one, then shooting the others execution-style, and declared on an Islamic militant website that Iraqi fighters would avenge “the blood” of women and children killed in US strikes on the guerrilla stronghold of Fallujah.

An Iraqi extremist group claimed today it had killed 11 Iraqi troops it had taken hostage south of Baghdad.

Militants beheaded a man, presumably an Iraqi, who said he worked for the US military in the northern city of Mosul for the past 10 months, according to a videotape posted on Islamic web sites today.

The video of the beheading of a Turkish hostage in Iraq appeared on an Islamic website today.

The beheading of two hostages in Iraq – one a Kurdish translator and the other a Turkish contractor – was shown an Islamist website today.