Iceland’s leftist coalition today won the country’s general election striking a blow at the pro-business Independence Party that many blamed for the collapse of the country’s banking system.

HAMAS and Fatah gunmen exchanged fire yesterday as the long-dominant Palestinian faction was threatened with a violent backlash to its crushing election defeat by the Islamic militant group.

ITALIAN hostage Giuliana Sgrena, shot and wounded after being freed in Iraq claimed that US forces may have deliberately targeted her because Washington opposed Italy’s policy of dealing with kidnappers.

IRAQI militants are claiming to hold a US soldier hostage and have threatened to behead him in 72 hours unless the US releases Iraqi prisoners.

IRAQIS defied violence that killed 44 people and calls for a boycott to cast ballots in Iraq's first free election in a half-century yesterday.

Iraqis defied violence and calls for a boycott to cast ballots in Iraq’s first free election in a half-century today.

Iraqis turned out to vote today in their country’s first free election in a half-century, defying insurgents who launched deadly suicide bombings and mortar strikes at polling stations. By midday, at least 36 people were dead but the violence had slowed and voting picked up.

Iraqi forces backed by US troops raided a Shiite mosque in Baghdad’s Sadr City district, detaining up to 25 followers of a radical Shiite cleric, police and the cleric’s supporters said today.

AL-QAIDA ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi declared war on Iraq’s landmark elections yesterday in a warning intended to scare away voters a week before they go to the polls amid a raging insurgency.

The governor of the Baghdad region, known for co-operating closely with American troops, was assassinated along with six bodyguards as he drove to work in yet another bloody day of insurgent attacks that exposed grave security flaws in Iraq with elections less than a month away.

Iraq’s interim prime minister warned that insurgents are trying to foment sectarian civil war as well as derail elections, while thousands of mourners turned out for funerals in the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala a day after car bombs killed 67 people.

IRAQ’S interim prime minister yesterday threatened military action against the main insurgent stronghold of Fallujah if residents don’t hand over Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

FIERCE fighting raged in the Iraqi city of Najaf yesterday where a radical Shi’ite cleric spurned a final order from the prime minister to disarm his militia or face an attack on his sanctuary in a holy shrine.

Iraq’s interim prime minister has signed a long-anticipated law that gives him the authority to impose emergency measures to safeguard the country’s security, an official in his office said today.

Iraq’s interim prime minister said today that it was up to the Iraqi Special Tribunal to decide whether Saddam Hussein and his henchmen should face capital punishment on war crimes charges, the Arab language television station Al-Arabiya reported in Baghdad.

Iraq’s interim prime minister warned today that the “forces of terror” would be crushed as his new government took the oath of office to assume power only hours after US authorities handed over sovereignty.

Militants loyal to suspected al-Qaida terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi threatened to behead three Turkish hostages, fanning tensions as President George W Bush visited Turkey.

The US military struck a suspected terror network for a third time in a week in Iraq today, firing precision weapons at an alleged safehouse of the group believed behind coordinated attacks that killed more than 100 people this week.

IRAQ’S prime minister yesterday defended a US air strike that killed 22 people in Fallujah, but Iraqi officers in the town said the dead included women and children, but no foreign Muslim militants.

Iraq’s interim prime minister appealed today for help in improving the country’s security situation, asking other countries to bolster their support to Iraq’s beleaguered forces.

A suicide bomber rammed his 4X4 vehicle packed with artillery shells into a crowd of Iraqi army volunteers in Baghdad today, and the massive explosion that followed killed at least 35 people and wounding 138.

United States forces today intensified their hunt for Osama bin Laden, even as Afghanistan’s interim prime minister declared that terrorism had been ‘‘largely’’ beaten in his war-ravaged country.