A female suicide bomber blew herself up in Iraq today among police officers who were celebrating the release of a comrade from US custody, killing at least 22 people, Iraqi officials said.

GUNMEN killed an aide to Iraq’s most influential Shi’ite cleric and two bodyguards in a drive-by shooting outside a Baghdad mosque yesterday — an attack likely to stoke tensions between the Shi’ite majority and the Sunni minority, officials said.