Gunmen in police uniforms staged a brazen daylight raid on bus stations in central Baghdad today, kidnapping at least 50 people, including would-be travellers, merchants and vendors selling tea and sandwiches.

Gunmen killed 21 people, including a dozen students, after they dragged them off buses north-east of Baghdad.

A Russian Embassy official in Baghdad said today that one diplomat was killed and four diplomatic employees were abducted in the Iraqi capital.

Eleven people were killed and at least nine injured when a motorcycle bomb exploded in the courtyard of a Baghdad mosque this evening.