Two car bombs rocked northern Baghdad neighbourhoods today while another struck a Shiite holy city, in attacks that left at least 16 dead and 49 wounded, police and provincial officials said.

British troops today detained several police officers among more than a dozen Iraqis linked to a spate of killings, bombings and kidnappings in the southern city of Basra.

Insurgents fired rockets at a government building in Basra in southern Iraq early today, hitting nearby homes instead and killing one person. Seven people were wounded.

The militant Shiite cleric whose uprising in April left hundreds dead pledged to resist “oppression and occupation” and called the new interim Iraqi government “illegitimate”.