A British soldier was killed when a roadside bomb hit an army patrol in southern Iraq today.

A SUICIDE car bomber detonated explosives in a crowd of labourers gathered across the street from a major Shi’ite shrine in southern Iraq yesterday, killing at least 53 people and wounding 105.

Iraqi security forces have detained the leaders of the Omar Brigade group, a wing of al-Qaida in Iraq that had claimed to have carried out many deadly attacks throughout the country, according to National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie.