An Austrian security guard taken hostage with four Americans was killed and one of the American captives seriously wounded, Iraqi police said today.

A WAVE of sectarian rage swept across Iraq yesterday leaving at least 110 people dead and the violence-wracked country careering towards civil war.

Gunmen in Iraq shot dead 47 civilians and left their bodies in a ditch near Baghdad today as militia battles and sectarian reprisals followed the bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine yesterday.