Nearly 40 people have died in a rash of car bombings in Iraq’s capital in the space of 12 hours, including four co-ordinated blasts early today in central Baghdad that killed 15 and wounded 28 more, police said.

A firebrand cleric who issued religious decrees for an al Qaida-linked terrorist group has been killed during a car chase and shootout with Saudi police that also killed a policeman.

A TOP figure in the al-Qaida linked terrorist group in Saudi Arabia was gunned down in the capital yesterday in a shootout that also killed a policeman.

A leading al Qaida militant was killed in a shootout in Riyadh today.