Two car bombs rocked northern Baghdad neighbourhoods today while another struck a Shiite holy city, in attacks that left at least 16 dead and 49 wounded, police and provincial officials said.

Three roadside bombs killed a US Army soldier and two Iraqi civilians, and police found the bodies of four Iraqi men in Baghdad who apparently had been kidnapped and tortured.

Seven car bombs exploded across the Iraqi capital Baghdad today, killing at least 10 people and wounding dozens, as politicians met to try to finalise a new Cabinet.

A car bomb exploded today as worshippers were leaving a Shiite mosque north-east of Baghdad.

Suicide attackers wearing women’s robes blew themselves up today in a Shiite mosque in northern Baghdad, killing at least 79 people and wounding more than 164, police said.

An explosion rocked a Shiite mosque in northern Baghdad after religious services today, killing at least 30 people.

Insurgents blew up a small Shiite mosque north-east of Baghdad today, while police reported the discovery of nearly 40 bodies in several neighbourhoods of the Iraqi capital. The US military reported the death of three American soldiers.

The British Embassy in Baghdad has reported that US and Iraqi forces freed British man Norman Kember and two Canadian hostages early today in a military operation.

Suspected insurgents marked the third anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq today with roadside bombings that killed at least eight policemen, and authorities reported finding 15 more bullet-riddled bodies, one of them a 13-year-old girl, dumped in the capital and in the Tigris River south of Baghdad.

Iraqi police today reported they had found the bodies of at least 65 men killed by gunshots, most bound hand and foot, in a gruesome wave of apparent sectarian killing over the past 24 hours in some of Baghdad’s most dangerous neighbourhoods.

The body of the only American among four Christian peace activists kidnapped late last year was found near a west Baghdad railway line with gunshots to his head and chest, Iraqi police said today.

Heavy explosions rattled the Iraqi capital Baghdad today, and one of the blasts, a roadside bomb, killed at least nine passers-by and injured six.

Gunmen wearing commando uniforms of the Shiite-dominated Interior Ministry stormed an Iraqi security company that relied heavily on Sunni ex-military men from the Saddam Hussein regime and abducted 50 hostages.

Gunmen in Interior Ministry commando uniforms stormed the Baghdad, Iraq, offices of a private security company and kidnapped as many as 50 employees today.

A series of explosions rocked Baghdad today, killing at least two people and injuring 10.

Three bombs exploded within an hour in Baghdad today, killing at least 23 people and injuring 56.

Three bombs exploded today within an hour in Baghdad, killing 17 people and injuring 48.

An explosion targeting a police patrol in central Baghdad killed at least two civilians and injured 10 today, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said.

Two explosions hit Shiite targets in northern Baghdad after sundown today, killing at least 15 people and wounding 72, police said. The attacks raised the death toll for the day to at least 56.

Five explosions – including three car bombs, a suicide attacker wearing an explosives belt and a blast near the National Theatre – rocked Baghdad today, killing 41 people and wounding scores.

Four explosions, including two car bombs and a suicide bomber, rocked the Iraqi capital of Baghdad this morning, killing at least 36 people and injuring scores more.

Two British soldiers were killed in Amarah, 180 miles south-east of Baghdad, the Ministry of Defence reported, but gave no other details.

Four explosions, including two car bombs and a suicide bomber, rocked the the Iraqi capital Baghdad this morning, killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens.

Sunni Arabs are ready to end their boycott of talks to form a new government if rival Shiites return mosques seized in last week’s sectarian attacks and meet other unspecified demands, a Sunni official said today.

Bombs and gunfire killed about 60 people as another daytime curfew failed to halt violence that has claimed nearly 200 lives since the destruction of a Shiite shrine set off a wave of retribution against Sunnis and pushed Iraq toward civil war.

A suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt today in a line of Iraqis waiting to receive government payments, killing 10 people and wounding about 40, including children, police said.

Iraqi special forces backed by US troops raided houses in Baghdad today and detained at least 60 suspected insurgents.

Iraqi security forces are on high alert in Baghdad and four other large provinces to try halt terror attacks ahead of today’s announcement of preliminary election results, police and military said.

TWO men strapped with explosives detonated them at Baghdad’s police academy today, killing at least 43 people and wounding 73 more, officials said, while al-Jazeera broadcast an insurgent video of a man purported to be a US security consultant.

A SUICIDE car bomber attacked a hospital in central Iraq yesterday while US troops were handing out toys to children, killing 30 people, including four police guards, three women and two children, officials said.

A suicide bomber blew up his car outside a hospital south of Baghdad today as US troops were handing out food to children, killing 30 people and injuring about 40, including four Americans.

Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms burst into the home of a Sunni Arab sheikh today, killing him, three of his sons and a son-in-law in what police believe may have been aimed at discouraging Sunnis from participating in next month’s election.

Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms broke into the home of a Sunni parliamentary candidate today and killed him, his three sons and his son-in-law on the outskirts of Baghdad.

BOMBERS killed 42 people yesterday at a Baghdad restaurant favoured by police and an army recruiting centre to the north, while Iraqi troops along the Iranian border found 27 decomposing bodies, unidentified victims of the grisly violence plaguing the country.

The defence team in the trial of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has demanded that the case be delayed or moved out of Iraq, following the kidnapping and murder of one of its lawyers.

A DEFENCE lawyer in Saddam Hussein’s mass murder trial has been found dead, his body dumped near a Baghdad mosque with two gunshots to the head.

The body of a defence lawyer in Saddam Hussein’s mass murder trial was found dumped in the street with two bullet wounds in the head hours after gunmen dragged him from his office, terrorising the defence team, who today demanded the trial be further postponed or even moved out of Iraq.

A defence lawyer in Saddam Hussein’s mass murder trial who was kidnapped has been found dead, his body dumped near a Baghdad mosque, police and a top lawyers’ union official said today.