Iraqi state television today reported that US Vice President Dick Cheney was in Baghdad, but US officials said Cheney was not in the capital.

Iraqi security forces today said they have arrested the head of an al-Qaida cell in a western Iraqi city, as the US military announced the deaths of two soldiers and a Marine.

At least 25 people have been murdered in gangland-style killings in Iraq’s third-largest city this week.

Iraqi police stormed a farm north of Baghdad early today and freed at least 17 people who were snatched a day earlier in a mass kidnapping of 64 workers and family members at the end of a factory shift.

The Iraqi Interior Ministry’s counter-insurgency Wolf Brigade captured what it called a top aide to al-Qaida in the country, state television reported today.