The negotiator for the militant Shiite stronghold of Fallujah was freed from US custody today but refused to resume peace talks.

US troops today pounded the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah with airstrikes and tank fire, as the Iraqi government appealed to residents to expel “foreign terrorists” to prevent an all-out attack.

The terrorists who beheaded British hostage Ken Bigley claimed responsibility today for daring suicide attacks inside Baghdad’s heavily guarded Green Zone that killed five people, including three American civilians.

IRAQ’S interim prime minister yesterday threatened military action against the main insurgent stronghold of Fallujah if residents don’t hand over Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

THE beheading of two Iraqi intelligence officers by their kidnappers appeared in a video on an Islamic website yesterday.

An Arabic television station broadcast video today showing three hooded gunmen threatening to behead a Turkish hostage within three days unless their conditions are met.

Car bombers have struck twice in rapid succession in Baghdad, killing at least 11 people including an American soldier, as US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned that violence may increase before the January election.

TWO car bombs shook the capital in quick succession yesterday, killing at least 11 people, including an American soldier, and wounding 16.

Car bombers struck twice in rapid succession in the Iraqi capital today, killing at least 11 people including an American soldier and wounding at least 16.

Ken Bigley made a frantic bid to escape his captors shortly before being executed, sources in Iraq and the United States said today.

Australia’s foreign minister took time during federal elections today to condemn the execution in Iraq of British hostage Kenneth Bigley.

AFTER a career spent working across the globe and a life punctuated with heartache, Kenneth Bigley hoped Iraq would be his last posting before he settled into happy retirement at a new home in Bangkok.

British hostage Ken Bigley has been killed by his captors in Iraq, Abu Dhabi television reported today.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi appealed today to kidnappers in Iraq to free hostage Kenneth Bigley.

The British government is ready to listen Ken Bigley’s kidnappers but will not enter into negotiations with them for the hostage’s release, Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in Baghdad today.

More than 80 people were killed today in a major US and Iraqi army assault to retake control of the northern city of Samarra.

A British hostage appeared on a video posted on an Islamic website weeping and pleading for his life as Iraq’s leader and US officials stifled reports a high-profile female Iraqi weapons scientist could be released from jail soon - as demanded by his captors.

The spiritual leader of the terror group believed to have killed two American hostages in Iraq this week and responsible for a string of other deadly attacks has been killed in a US air strike, his family and Islamic clerics said yesterday.

WITH time running out for British hostage Kenneth Bigley, US and Iraqi officials said last night they would not free female Iraqi prisoners as demanded by an al-Qaida ally whose group has already beheaded two Americans.

British hostage Kenneth Bigley’s life was tonight in the blood-stained hands of a terrorist who has severed the heads of two other captives.

A headless corpse was found in Baghdad today hours after an al-Qaida-linked group boasted it had killed a second American hostage, leaving the Briton they are holding to face execution.

The militant group led by al-Qaida ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has posted a gruesome video on a website showing the decapitation of a man identified as American civil engineer Eugene Armstrong.

A VIDEO posted on a website last night showed the apparent beheading of American construction contractor Eugene Armstrong, said to have been carried out personally by key Iraq terror suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Militants pounded central Baghdad today with one of their most intense mortar barrages ever, targeting the Green Zone and destroying a US vehicle along a major street.

Militants pounded central Baghdad today with one of their most intense mortar barrages ever, targeting the Green Zone and destroying a US vehicle along a major street.

HOPES grew last night for the release of two French journalists held hostage in Iraq, with France’s foreign minister saying he had received word that they were alive.

REBEL forces inside the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf were warned yesterday they have “hours to surrender” or face attack from US and Iraqi forces.

A militant group said today it would release a Somali truck driver it kidnapped after the Kuwaiti company he works for agreed to stop working in Iraq, al-Jazeera television said.

A group claiming to be “al-Qaida in Europe” today threatened to turn Australia into “pools of blood” if it did not withdraw its troops from Iraq.

Militants freed a Filipino truck driver after the Philippines government gave in to their demands to withdraw troops from Iraq to prevent the beheading of the 46-year-old father of eight who had been held captive for two weeks.

THE kidnappers of a Philippine hostage in Iraq have extended by nine days their deadline for Manila to withdraw its troops or see him executed, a senior diplomat said yesterday.

Bulgaria and the Philippines insisted today they would not be cowed by terrorists after insurgents captured and threatened to kill their nationals in Iraq, the latest hostage takings in the country.

A reporter with Time Magazine has received video footage of a suicide bomber chronicling his final hours right up to his deadly mission.

The extremist movement responsible for beheading two foreign hostages, Al-Zarqawi, announced today it had kidnapped three Turkish workers and would kill them within 72 hours unless Turkish companies quit doing business with U.S. forces in Iraq, an Arab television station reported.

INSURGENTS killed 89 people in a devastating series of co-ordinated attacks against police and government buildings across Sunni Muslim areas of Iraq yesterday, less than a week before the handover of sovereignty.