A car bomb struck a bakery crowded with customers lining up for bread today, killing at least 11 people as they ended their daytime Ramadan fast, officials said.

The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq offered money for the murder of a Swedish cartoonist who recently produced images deemed insulting to Islam, in a statement carried by Islamist websites today.

An al-Qaida umbrella group in Iraq today denied that US troops had captured the highest ranking Iraqi in the leadership of al-Qaida in Iraq.

The highest-ranking Iraqi in the leadership of al-Qaida in Iraq has been arrested, the US command said today.

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.

A TOP insurgent leader boasted that his al-Qaida-linked group was making its own rockets, while Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki said his government was talking with militant groups to try to stop the violence.

A top Iraqi insurgent leader today claimed in an audiotape posted online that his al-Qaida-linked group had begun manufacturing its own rockets.

The leader of al-Qaida-linked militants in Iraq has warned against US attempts to convince fellow Sunni Muslims to back the Baghdad government, saying those who support Washington are “infidels” and would be killed, according to an internet audio recording.

Iraqi officials said today they were holding a top al-Qaida official, but not the terror mastermind Abu Omar al-Baghdadi who they believed was captured a day earlier.

The leader of the al-Qaida-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, has been captured, an Iraqi military spokesman said today.

An al-Qaida-affiliated group claimed in a web posting today that its members stormed a northern Iraqi prison yesterday and freed 150 inmates there.

AT LEAST 118 Shi’ite pilgrims were slaughtered in attacks across Iraq yesterday, sparking fears of reprisals that could frustrate efforts by Iraqi and US forces to quell sectarian violence.