UK mortgage lender Bradford & Bingley today sold £4.2bn (€5.8bn) of loans as it moved to boost cash reserves at a time of soaring wholesale funding costs.

Gunmen fired on supporters of the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, killing one person and wounding two others as they made their way to protests planned for the second anniversary of Baghdad’s fall to US-led troops.

An explosion rocked Baghdad today near the Ministry of the Interior and a plume of smoke could be seen rising above the western part of the capital.

American soldiers shot dead seven members of an armed gang trying to steal oil from a pipeline in central Iraq last night.

US troops rounded up suspected rebels today during house-to-house searches in strongholds of Saddam Hussein, capitalising on intelligence gleaned from the capture of the former Iraqi dictator.

An American soldier and two attackers were killed today in a firefight in the troubled Iraqi town of Fallujah.

US forces occupied part of Baghdad’s airport before dawn today, putting them nine miles from the capital after a fierce battle with Iraqi fighters.