The most prominent figure in a revolt of Sunni sheikhs against al Qaida in Iraq was killed today in an explosion near his home in Anbar province, Iraqi police and tribal leaders said.

Police ordered a curfew today in Shiite holy city of Karbala and told more than one million pilgrims to leave after two days of violence claimed least 26 lives during a Shiite religious festival.

Police opened fire on a black-clad woman as she walked towards police recruits in Baghdad, detonating her suicide bomb, the Iraqi Interior Ministry reported.

Iraqi officials have received reports that the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq has been killed north of Baghdad but the information has not been confirmed, the chief government spokesman said today.

Gunmen killed 23 members of the Yazidi religious minority in northern Iraq today, after stopping their bus and separating out followers of other faiths, police said.

Al-Qaida-led Iraqi insurgents issued a video today purporting to show the killing of 20 kidnapped Iraqi police and soldiers, each shot in the head execution-style as they knelt in a row.

Insurgents penetrated security today in a city sacred to Shiites, planting a car bomb near one of Iraq’s holiest shrines and killing at least 37 people in a continued surge in attacks outside Baghdad during a security crackdown there.

A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up in the Iraqi parliament cafeteria in an assault in the heart of the heavily fortified, US-protected Green Zone today, killing at least eight people including three politicians, the American military said.

AT LEAST 118 Shi’ite pilgrims were slaughtered in attacks across Iraq yesterday, sparking fears of reprisals that could frustrate efforts by Iraqi and US forces to quell sectarian violence.

The US military today said it has no indication that the al Qaida in Iraq leader was killed or wounded in a raid north of Baghdad, while an Iraqi army officer said his deputy has been jailed south of Baghdad for a week.

The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq was wounded and an aide was killed in a clash today with Iraqi forces north of Baghdad, the Interior Ministry spokesman said.

A British soldier was killed when a roadside bomb hit an army patrol in southern Iraq today.

Gunmen killed a Shiite tribal sheikh linked to British forces in a drive-by shooting today in the southern city of Basra, while two US Marines were reported killed in fighting in a volatile province west of Baghdad.

Iraq’s Interior Ministry has charged 57 employees, including a police general, with human rights abuses over the alleged torture of hundreds of detainees at a prison in eastern Baghdad, a ministry spokesman said today.

Iraqi security forces closed two Sunni Muslim television stations today for violating curfew and a law that bans airing material that could undermine the country’s stability after Saddam Hussein was sentenced to hang.

US forces have arrested a senior al-Qaida terrorist and personal associate of the group’s new leader, the top US military spokesman in Iraq said today.

On the day of the first session of Iraq’s new parliament today, and within days of the third anniversary of the US-led invasion, the country lie under the shadow of a feared civil war and politicians report a stalemate over the next government.

Eleven people – most of them women and children – were killed when a house was bombed during a US raid north of Baghdad early today, police and relatives said.

Militants detonated car bombs in quick succession today near two churches in southern Baghdad after sundown, killing at least three people and injuring 52 others, according to the US military and police.

A military strike was launched on a home in the Iraqi city of Fallujah today, the United States command said.

Iraqi orphan Ali Ismaeel Abbas, who was horrifically injured in a Baghdad bomb attack, was today due to undergo life-saving surgery.

UNTIL now, many Iraqis had seemed in denial about the prospect of war. No longer. Baghdad is beating to a different rhythm in the final hours before the seemingly inevitable US-led onslaught starts.