Police have arrested two leaders of the insurgency in Iraq, including a top aide to Iraqi al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, it was announced today.

A suicide car bomber struck at a religious ceremony in western Baghdad today, killing at least seven people and wounding 10 more, police and medical officials said.

A trio of suicide attacks has killed at least 27 people and injured dozens in Baghdad, officials said.

A car bomb exploded in front of a hospital south of Baghdad today, killing 17 and wounding 16, police said, a day after 23 were killed in two attacks aimed at the Shiite community.

A CARBOMB exploded outside a Shi’ite mosque north-east of Baghdad yesterday, killing at least 12 people and injuring dozens, a police official and witnesses said.

A car bomb exploded outside a Shiite mosque north-east of Baghdad today, killing 13 people and injuring more than 40, police said.

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.

Insurgents launched fresh attacks, killing four US soldiers and four Iraqi security troops in roadside bombings, as partial returns from the historic elections show a Shiite alliance with ties to Iran rolling up a strong lead over pro-US Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.

Iraqi insurgents struck back hard today after a post-election lull, with a wave of attacks across the country that left at least 28 people dead.

A suicide bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body in front of a police station in a Kurdish town near the Iranian border, killing eight people on the eve of Iraq’s crucial national election, Iraqi and US officials said.

A car bomb exploded near a Baghdad police station today, killing four Iraqi policemen and injuring four other people, police said.

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.

An al-Qaida suicide driver detonated a car bomb at a guard post outside the Iraqi prime minister’s party headquarters in Baghdad today, injuring at least 10 people.

INSURGENTS detonated a suicide car bomb at police headquarters in the Iraqi town of Baiji yesterday, killing at least 10 people, and shot dead eight Iraqi soldiers at a checkpoint ahead of January 30 polls.

Gunmen killed eight Iraqi National Guards at a checkpoint today, and eight people died in a suicide car bombing at a police station north of Baghdad, as insurgents struck at security forces ahead of national elections.

US troops have staged a series of raids in northern and central Iraq, arresting dozens, as insurgents stepped up their attacks two weeks ahead of national elections, ambushing a car carrying a female candidate and killing 24 people in other assaults.

US FORCES carried out a series of raids in Iraq’s troubled northern city of Mosul yesterday, as American and Iraqi authorities scrambled to prepare for elections in the face of mass resignations of polling staff and police.

A roadside explosion and three separate car bombs – one near the prime minister’s party headquarters in Baghdad – killed at least 16 people in Iraq today.

POLISH-LED coalition troops and Iraqi security forces arrested seven suspects and seized weapons in an operation in central Iraq, the military have said.

Rebels launched multiple attacks on Iraqi police posts around the city of Tikrit killing 23 people – including 18 policemen – a day after the major Sunni Muslim political party pulled out of the campaign for the January 30 elections citing the deteriorating security situation.

Rebels launched multiple attacks on Iraqi police posts around the city of Tikrit, killing 18 policemen and injuring three, while a car bomb in northern Baghdad injured nine people, Iraqi and US officials said today.

Rebels launched an attack on an Iraqi police post near the city of Tikrit, killing 12 policemen, and a car bomb exploded in northern Baghdad injuring nine people, officials said today.

At least 22 people were killed and 50 wounded today in an attack at a US and Iraqi base near the northern city of Mosul.

Car bombs rocked Iraq’s two holiest Shiite cities today, killing at least 60 people and wounding more than 120, while in Baghdad dozens of gunmen carried out a brazen ambush on car, killing three employees of the organisation running next month’s elections.

INSURGENTS attacked a car carrying at least three Westerners in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul yesterday, killing them and their Iraqi driver and cutting off the head of one of the victims, local witnesses said.

Gunmen killed four occupants of a car in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul today and eyewitnesses claimed three of the victims were Westerners.

A SUICIDE car bomber linked to al-Qaida killed 13 people in Baghdad yesterday as seven US Marines were also killed on the first anniversary of the capture of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

Iraqi Insurgents used the volatile city of Ramadi’s main hospital to ambush US soldiers, the military said today, firing rocket propelled grenades and small arms fire at troops but inflicting no American casualties.

INSURGENTS killed a police captain at a checkpoint and gunned down an Iraqi National Guard officer in a billiard hall in scattered violence against American forces and their allies in northern Iraq yesterday.

A car bomb exploded in a busy Mosul market today and a mortar barrage struck near the Italian Embassy and an Iraqi National Guard base in Baghdad, killing three civilians and wounding at least seven.

A roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi National Guard patrol south of Baghdad, killing three guardsmen and wounding 11, an official said today.

GUNMEN ambushed a bus full of Iraqis working for the US military, killing 17 civilians and wounding 13 in Tikrit yesterday, while a car bomb and a gun attack killed four members of the Iraqi security forces elsewhere in northern Iraq.

Gunmen ambushed a bus carrying Iraqis working for the US military, killing 17 civilians and wounding 13 in Tikrit today, while a car bomb and a gun attack killed four members of the Iraqi security forces elsewhere in northern Iraq.

In the second major assault on Baghdad’s police force in two days, two car bombs exploded next to an Iraqi police station just outside Baghdad’s Green Zone today, killing seven people and wounding 59 people, mostly police. Insurgents killed 16 officers in an attack yesterday.

A car bomb exploded next to an Iraqi police station just outside Baghdad’s Green Zone today, killing six Iraqi policemen and wounding 10, an Iraqi security official said. It was the second major attack in two days targeting Iraqi police in the capital.

GUNMEN yesterday assassinated a member of an influential Sunni clerics’ group that has called for a boycott of national elections.

IRAQ yesterday chose January 30, 2005 for its first democratic election in decades, but violence in Sunni Muslim areas underlined the challenge of holding polls on time.

Rebels reeling from the loss of their base in Fallujah struck back with car bombings and a rocket attack on Baghdad’s Green Zone as a US official admitted that security in some areas was deteriorating so badly “it would now be difficult” to hold elections there.

Four people were killed in Iraq today after two bombs targeted a police station and a recruitment centre in separate attacks.

US and Iraqi troops recaptured police stations and secured bridges in the northern city of Mosul in an offensive aimed at pushing out fighters supporting the rebel stronghold of Fallujah.

FIERCE battles between insurgents and US and Iraqi forces killed at least 16 people yesterday in the latest in a wave of clashes that has swept Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland.

The Iraqi government sent reinforcements to the country’s third-largest city, Mosul, today, seeking to quell a militant uprising that US officials fear is in support of the resistance in Fallujah – now said to be under 80% US control.

A roadside bomb today in northern Iraq killed six Iraqi soldiers and wounded two others, Iraqi officials said.

Rebels launched a wave of deadly attacks against police stations in Iraq's western Anbar province for the second day in a row today, killing at least 22 people.