Large explosions were heard tonight at the US base at Kirkuk airport, and an Iraqi officer said it appeared the blasts were coming from the ammunition dump there.

American tanks and AC-130 gunships pounded militia positions early today near two shrines in the centre of the holy city of Karbala killing 18 fighters loyal to a rebel cleric.

Diplomatic efforts to end a standoff between US troops and an anti-American cleric in one of the holiest cities in Shiite Islam pressed forward today and an Iraqi leader said he saw “flexibility” on the side of the charismatic cleric, who heads a militia with several thousand members.

At least four Iraqis, including two soldiers, died and 30 people were injured during a protest outside a Spanish military garrison in the southern holy city of Najaf today, witnesses and a hospital worker said.

Bombings and shootings across Iraq have left 18 people dead, including a US Marine and a cameraman killed in fierce fighting between American forces and guerrillas armed with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades in a town west of Baghdad.

Insurgents detonated explosives on an oil well in northern Iraq sparking a fire that raged for 24 hours before being extinguished, a senior Iraqi security official said today.

GUNMEN attacked Iraqi police in two northern Iraqi cities, sparking clashes that killed two attackers as jailed former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein wrote a letter to his family for the international Red Cross to deliver, officials said.

Gunmen attacked Iraqi police in two northern Iraqi cities, sparking clashes that killed two attackers, police said today.

THE United States has used information gained during interrogations of Saddam Hussein to help round up insurgents and identify false leads, a senior military official said yesterday.

A SERIES of roadside attacks in Iraq killed a local security officer and wounded at least 13 other people yesterday as insurgents mounted fresh strikes against Iraqis seen as collaborating with US forces.

A BEAMING Saddam Hussein was among 100 graduates who joined the ranks yesterday of the US-trained Iraqi Civil Defence Corps.

Iraqi political parties and coalition chiefs are discussing the creation of a 1,000-member militia to bolster the US military’s fight against the guerrilla uprising.

British and American forces will remain in Iraq until that country’s own people and agencies are in a position to take over responsibility for their own security, Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George Bush declared today.

A bomb exploded near a pipeline in northern Iraq, killing two Iraqi Civil Defence Corps members and wounding 10 others, US officials said.

More than 300,000 Muslims began a two-day, 110-mile march to the holy city of Najaf today to mourn the Shiite leader assassinated in a car bombing that killed at least 85 people.