Explosions rocked a Baghdad university as students were leaving at the end of classes today, killing at least 65 people and wounding at least 138, police and hospital officials said.

Two minivans exploded near a university as students were leaving after classes today in a predominantly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad, killing at least 31 people and wounding dozens, police said.

US-led forces captured a senior al-Qaida leader who was responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths and housed foreign fighters who carried out suicide bombings, the US military said today.

Two suicide car bombers killed at least 12 people in separate attacks across the Iraqi capital today, police said.

A rubbish collector and a Baghdad University security chief were killed today - among the latest victims of seemingly random violence in Iraq as Prime Minister Nouri Maliki steps up his efforts to bring insurgents into the political process.

A rubbish collector and the head of security for Baghdad University were killed in separate drive-by shootings today as a string of attacks left at least seven people dead in the Iraqi capital.

CONGRESSIONAL critics of US President George W Bush's stay-the-course commitment to the war in Iraq argued yesterday that the administration lacks sufficient troops on the ground to mount a successful counterinsurgency.

Iraqis expressed a mix of feelings today when asked about US President George Bush’s pledge to keep American troops in their country until Iraq’s security forces can stand alone, with some agreeing and others fed up with what they still call an “occupation”.

A SERIES of car bombs exploded after dusk yesterday in Baghdad, killing at least 23 people and wounding about 56, police said. Separate attacks earlier in the day killed seven others.

A roadside bomb attack has killed two Iraqi policemen northeast of Baghdad, police said today.

Gunmen waylaid a minibus carrying foreign technicians to their jobs at a mobile telephone company in western Baghdad today, seizing four Egyptians in the second kidnapping of foreigners in the Iraqi capital within a week.

GUNMEN kidnapped an Italian journalist in Baghdad yesterday, the latest in a series of brazen abductions but the first since Iraq’s election.

An Italian woman journalist was kidnapped near Baghdad University today.

Gunmen ambushed an Associated Press driver today, riddling his car with bullets and killing him near his home in Baghdad.

A US soldier was killed yesterday in an apparent drive-by shooting at a gas station in Iraq, the US military said.

A man who says he was Sadddam Hussein’s sorcerer predicts the Iraqi dictator will be found dead.

IRAQ’S cascade of violence has claimed more American lives, with a bomb attack on a military convoy killing one US soldier yesterday and gunmen slaying another in an ambush on a patrol in the capital.

AN American soldier was shot in the head as he waited in line to buy a soft drink at Baghdad University yesterday, while American forces killed two insurgents who charged an army post in a truck, firing a rocket-propelled grenade.

An American soldier was shot in the head as he queued to buy a soft drink at Baghdad University today.

THE US official sent in to oversee Baghdad and a large swath of its surrounding territory is leaving her position immediately after less than a month, a spokesman for the postwar American administration said yesterday.

Armed with rifles, Baghdad residents beat up looters and blockaded Baghdad streets today in an attempt to quell the pillaging and lawlessness running rampant in the Iraqi capital.

Lawlessness spread in Baghdad today even as the fighting dwindled to occasional bursts of machine gun fire.

UP to 3,000 Iraqi fighters were killed in a show-of-force foray into Baghdad