US troops have arrested at least 20 insurgents in a raid in northern Iraq, but they failed to capture their main target – Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a former Saddam deputy and the King of Clubs in the most wanted list.

A new US draft resolution is to be submitted to the UN giving Iraq’s Governing Council until December 15 to develop a timetable for elections and a new constitution.

A mortar blast at a market north of Baghdad killed eight civilians shortly after the United Nations announced plans to scale back its international staff because of continuing violence.

THREE American soldiers were killed and 13 injured in a mortar attack and a bombing in the volatile region of central Iraq, the US military reported yesterday.

Aquila al-Hashimi, one of three women members of Iraq’s Governing Council, was shot in the abdomen and critically wounded today in an assassination attempt outside her home in west Baghdad, police and doctors said.

The death toll from the massive car bomb that exploded at Iraq’s holiest Shiite shrine rose to 85 today, with 140 injured.