Shiite lawmakers today chose Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to head the new government, selecting the incumbent by a one-vote margin over Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi, Shiite officials said.

INSURGENTS fired rocket-propelled grenades at the home of an Iraqi police officer yesterday, killing his four children and his brother and wounding his wife.

Insurgents exploded a suicide car bomb and launched two mortar shells at Iraq’s Interior Ministry during National Police Day celebrations today, killing 29 people and injuring 18.

THE Iraqi Government announced yesterday it will close all borders, extend curfew hours and ban travel across provincial borders as part of stringent security measures to protect voters during this week’s parliamentary elections.

The Iraqi government announced today it will close all borders, extend curfew hours and ban travel across provincial borders as part of stringent security measures to protect voters during this week’s parliamentary elections.

Iraq’s Interior Ministry has banned all non-Iraqi Arabs from entering the country until further notice, part of security measures taken for the December 15 general elections.

Iraqi troops will be ready to take charge of security in the country by the end of next year, so this month’s UN Security Council extension of the mandate for multinational force in Iraq could be the last, Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said today.

TWO US marines taking part in an offensive in western Iraq are reported to have been captured by al-Qaida.

ABOUT 500 civilians and policemen, some waving pistols and AK-47s, rallied yesterday in the southern city of Basra and denounced “British aggression” following London’s decision to use force to free two of its soldiers being held by Iraqi police.

The Iraqi prime minister today sealed the northern border crossing into Syria and imposed a dusk to dawn curfew in the region around the Rabiaa frontier post.

US and Iraqi troops swept into the insurgent stronghold of Tal Afar early today, conducting house-to-house searches and battering down walls with armoured vehicles in a second bid to clean the city of militant fighters.

Two people have been detained in connection with the kidnapping of two Algerian diplomats last week, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said today.

Wisam Younis’ sole ambition in life, he said, is to kill Americans. So he expressed surprise when he discovered that his car bomb had killed eight Iraqis and wounded more than 80 outside a Baghdad restaurant.

IRAQ’S interior minister said his office believes militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was wounded, while an internet statement claimed that Iraq’s most feared terrorist group had appointed a deputy to fill in for the Jordanian.

The government announced today that a security cordon of 40,000 Iraqi soldiers and police will ring Baghdad starting next week to try to halt a spree of insurgent violence that has killed more than 620 people this month.