A series of bombings and mortar attacks – including two suicide bombings in the northern city of Kirkuk, killed at least 27 people and wounded another 80 today.

A suicide truck bomb exploded in the city of Kirkuk today killing at least 12 people and wounding another 55, police said.

A string of deadly attacks ripped through the Iraqi capital today, killing at least 26 people and wounding nearly 70, police said.

A car bomb exploded in eastern Baghdad targeting an Iraqi police patrol today, wounding at least one policeman and another civilian, police said.

Ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein will face charges of premeditated murder, torture and forced expulsion and disappearances when he goes on trial next week for a 1982 massacre of Shiites, a court official said today.

A blinding sandstorm in Baghdad forced the postponement of a meeting scheduled by Iraqi political leaders to discuss issues blocking agreement on a new constitution, President Jalal Talabani’s office announced.

Former Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein faces a range of charges from gassing thousands of Kurds to executing political and religious leaders, a list of the cases against him showed today.

THE contrast between Iraq’s Kurdish provinces and the insurgency-racked cities to the south is evident in the 100 or so labourers gathered at the main square of this Kurdish town, looking for work.

LEADING Iraqi political parties called yesterday for elections scheduled for January 30 to be delayed because of Iraq’s widening violence.

IRAQI Prime Minister Iyad Allawi yesterday said elections would be held on schedule in January despite a surge in violence and more than a score of hostages under threat of death from insurgents.

A chilling video surfaced today purporting to show militants sawing off the heads of three Iraqi members of a Kurdish party for cooperating with American forces.

US soldiers in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul shot and killed four rebels suspected of involvement in attacks in the region, the military said today.

TWO suicide bombers struck the offices of two US-backed Kurdish parties in near-simultaneous attacks yesterday as hundreds of Iraqis gathered to celebrate a Muslim holiday.

Two suicide bombers struck the offices of two US-backed Kurdish parties in near-simultaneous attacks today as hundreds of Iraqis gathered to celebrate a Muslim holiday.

Two suicide bombers struck at the offices of two rival Kurdish parties in near simultaneous attacks today as hundreds of Iraqis gathered to celebrate a Muslim holiday. At least 57 people were killed and more than 235 were wounded, officials said.

Two suicide bombers have killed around 10 people outside the offices of a Kurdish political party in northern Iraq.

IRAQ got its first post-war cabinet yesterday as the funeral march for Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim, killed in the Najaf car bomb massacre, continued its three-day journey to the revered cleric’s final resting place.

THE United States yesterday said Iraq should have an interim national leadership in place

A council of up to nine Iraqis will probably lead the country’s still unformed interim government through the coming months, the American civil administrator said today.

The Iraqi 5th Corps, charged with defending Mosul, Iraq’s third biggest city still in the hands of Saddam Hussein loyalists, was tonight reported to be negotiating surrender.

Kurdish fighters entered the strategic oil-rich city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq today where residents toppled statues of Saddam Hussein and looted government offices.

US special forces and Kurdish peshmerga fighters seized a strategic hilltop near the major Baghdad-held city of Mosul in northern Iraq early today, a senior Kurdish leader said.

US aircraft pounded Iraqi positions near the northern town of Kalak yesterday, aiding Kurdish fighters as they seized territory from Saddam Hussein’s fleeing troops.

ABBAS ALI was jubilant when the northern Iraq frontlines moved.

The Iraqi National Congress (INC): Founded in 1992 as an umbrella group for other exiled opposition groups, the INC has since faced claims it acts unilaterally as its own party.

The sudden expulsion of about 50 families from a strip of northern Iraq has triggered speculation that Saddam Hussein is preparing a buffer zone to defend against a US invasion.

Seven people were killed and two injured when a pick-up truck hit a land mine in northern Iraq.