Britain’s weekend handover of Basra province will have a limited effect on security in Iraq’s biggest oil region because rival Shiite warlords and local officials have been wielding the real power in the area.

Iraq’s prime minister has blamed the mass kidnapping at an education ministry building on an inter-militia conflict.

The Iraqi prime minister's office said only 45 to 50 people had been kidnapped in a lightning raid on a Baghdad higher education office today, and 20 of them had been released.

Iraq’s prime minister has set in motion the biggest security crackdown in Baghdad since the US-led invasion, with 75,000 Iraqi and US troops to deploy across the capital from today.

Sunni insurgents in Iraq hit two Shiite towns in two days with brutal bombings that killed more than 110 people, apparently aiming to scare Shiites away from a crucial vote on Iraq’s new constitution.