A suicide bomber blew himself up near an Iraqi army checkpoint in the northern city of Mosul, killing seven people, according to officials.

A gang using bombs and weapons tried to storm a bank in Baghdad in a failed robbery bid in which at least two policemen were killed, Iraqi security officials said today.

A SUICIDE car bomber struck a police crime lab in central Baghdad yesterday, killing at least 21 people and injuring dozens a day after suicide attacks hit several hotels favoured by Western journalists, officials said.

Al-Qaida’s umbrella group in Iraq has claimed responsibility for twin suicide bombings in the heart of Baghdad that killed at least 155 people, including 24 children trapped in a bus.

Up to 100 people were feared dead in a wave of co-ordinated explosions across Baghdad today.

BACK-TO-BACK suicide bombings killed 60 people yesterday outside the most important Shi’ite shrine in Baghdad, a day after the country was rocked by its most deadly violence in more than a year, police officials said.

AN OIL refinery in Iraq’s western desert has resumed production, the government said yesterday, as part of an outreach to an area once controlled by Sunni insurgents.

A soldier killed in Iraq was the first American casualty in a roadside bomb attack on the new heavily-armoured mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicle (MRAP).

Soldiers in Iraq have uncovered a suspected al-Qaida torture chamber.

At least nine people were killed and 17 wounded when a car bomb struck a market district during rush hour in central Baghdad today, Iraqi police said.

Iraq’s prime minister called a crisis conference in a bid to reach open a dialogue tomorrow among Iraq’s divided factions, to shore up his shaky government and unstick the stalled political process.

Two car bombs detonated in a Baghdad neighbourhood today, killing at least eight people.

Mortar rounds hit a US Air Force base north of Baghdad today, destroying one helicopter and damaging nine others, police said.

A parked car exploded near a market in central Baghdad on today, killing at last 11 people and wounding about 40, police said.

Roadside bombs killed eight American soldiers in separate attacks today in Diyala province and Baghdad, and a car bomb claimed 30 more lives in a wholesale food market in a part of the Iraqi capital where sectarian tensions are on the rise.

Al-Qaida’s Number 2 mocked both US President George Bush and the US Congress bill setting a pullout timetable for US troops from Iraq, in a new insurgent video intercepted tonight by a US-based group.

US-led forces conducting a crackdown on al-Qaida killed a senior member of the insurgent group who was responsible for the high-profile kidnappings of several Westerners, a military spokesman said today.

Nine US soldiers were killed and 20 were wounded in a suicide car bombing against a patrol base in Iraq, the military said.

AMERICAN Defence Secretary Robert Gates slipped into Iraq yesterday to warn Iraqi leaders that the US commitment to a military buildup there is not open-ended.

Al-Qaida-led Iraqi insurgents issued a video today purporting to show the killing of 20 kidnapped Iraqi police and soldiers, each shot in the head execution-style as they knelt in a row.

Three car bombs exploded in a predominantly Shiite town north of Baghdad today, police said, but they had no immediate word on casualties.

At least four people were killed today when a parked car bomb struck a bus packed with workers in a volatile city south of Baghdad.

The Pentagon has approved a request by the new US commander in Iraq for an extra 2,200 military police (MPs) to help deal with an anticipated increase in detainees during the current Baghdad security crackdown.

The chief US military spokesman in Iraq today insisted that Muqtada al-Sadr has left the country and is believed to be in Iran, despite denials from the radical Shiite cleric’s supporters.

Three US soldiers were killed and four were wounded in an explosion at a building in a volatile area north-east of Baghdad, the military said today.

Al-Qaida-linked Sunni insurgents today claimed responsibility for the downing of a US military helicopter north west of Baghdad.

Violence raked Baghdad today as an Iraqi general took charge of the security operation in the capital and Iraqi police and soldiers manned new roadblocks - initial steps indicating the start of the long-anticipated joint operation with American forces to curb sectarian bloodshed.

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

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

US and Iraqi forces arrested one of Muqtada al-Sadr’s top aides today in Baghdad, his office said, as pressure increases on the radical Shiite cleric’s militia ahead of a planned security sweep aimed at stemming the sectarian violence ransacking the capital.

US President George Bush’s new strategy to send thousands of extra troops to Iraq was met with harsh scepticism across the Middle East today where many predicted that even with more soldiers, America would fail at breaking the cycle of violence.

Iraqi forces backed by US troops will begin an assault on militants in Baghdad this weekend as a first step in the new White House strategy to contain Sunni insurgents and Shiite death squads, key advisers to the Iraq prime minister said.

The number of American deaths in the Iraq war has reached the milestone of 3,000 as the Bush administration seeks to overhaul its strategy for an unpopular conflict that shows little sign of abating.

Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders today called for an end to Iraq’s sectarian conflict and vowed to track down those responsible for the war’s deadliest attack.

A car bomb exploded in northern Iraq today, killing at least 22 people and wounding 26, police said.

After nearly a quarter-century of severed ties, Iraq said it would resume diplomatic relations with neighbouring Syria – a move seen as a possible step toward stemming some of the unrelenting violence, which claimed another 100 lives.

Iran has invited the Iraqi and Syrian presidents to Tehran for a weekend summit with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to thrash out ways to cooperate in curbing violence in Iraq, four key politicians said today.

Tony Blair has apparently admitted that the invasion of Iraq by the United States and Britain was a disaster.

At least 20 Iraqis were killed in clashes early today in Ramadi, where US ground troops and warplanes have conducted a series of operations over recent days targeting Sunni insurgents, police and medical workers said.

Iraq’s Interior Ministry has charged 57 employees, including a police general, with human rights abuses over the alleged torture of hundreds of detainees at a prison in eastern Baghdad, a ministry spokesman said today.

Gunmen attacked two Sunni mosques today in Baghdad, fanning Iraq’s sectarian crisis, as US military officials confirmed three more US Marines died in action in separate attacks in western Iraq.

Sunni Arab participation in the Iraqi elections could have been even higher if there had there been more polling centres in key Sunni areas, a head of the largest Sunni Arab slate said today.

IRAQ’s ruling Shi’ite Islamist parties struck a last-minute deal to patch up differences yesterday and agreed to register as a united bloc for December 15 polls where they face a new Sunni Arab alliance.

The body of a defence lawyer in Saddam Hussein’s mass murder trial was found dumped in the street with two bullet wounds in the head hours after gunmen dragged him from his office, terrorising the defence team, who today demanded the trial be further postponed or even moved out of Iraq.