A US helicopter crashed north-east of Baghdad today, killing all 13 people on board, the US military said.

US-LED coalition forces killed 20 suspected al-Qaida militants, including two women, yesterday, in fighting and air strikes north-west of Baghdad, the military said.

Iraq’s prime minister distanced himself from a raid by US and Iraqi forces today on Sadr City – the stronghold of the Shiite militia led by radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al Sadr.

The Shiite militia run by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr seized control of the southern Iraqi city of Amarah today in one of the boldest acts of defiance yet by the country’s powerful, unofficial armies, witnesses and police said.

The UN humanitarian chief hurriedly left a Darfur camp for displaced people today when a crowd attacked one of his translators over an apparent mistake, a UN spokeswoman said.

An aide to rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr today offered to hand over medium and heavy weapons and cooperate with Iraqi security forces in Baghdad if the government stops pursuing members of the Shiite militia and releases most of his followers held in jail.

Iraq authorities have forcibly removed members of a hardline Shiite militia from a building they were illegally occupying in Najaf, the US military said today.

Around 2,000 civilians were shot at by Iraqi paramilitary forces as they tried to flee the southern city of Basra, British army officers claimed today.

THE British Army is investigating claims that a man from Manchester who was fighting for Saddam Hussein near Basra has been detained by British forces and is being held in a prisoner of war camp in Southern Iraq.

On the eve of the most important elections in Zimbabwe’s history, the Supreme Court barred tens of thousands from voting and the opposition claimed government supporters were still trying to win through intimidation.