The Iraqi government today urged people to vote in next week’s constitutional referendum, condemning insurgent groups for demanding a boycott and for killing civilians in an effort to wreck the ballot.

SADDAM HUSSEIN could face up to 500 charges, but prosecutors will focus on 12 well-documented cases, including the gassing of thousands of Kurds in northern Iraq, an official said yesterday.

Separate air crashes killed four American and four Italian troops, officials said today, and the governor of Anbar province was killed during clashes between US forces and the insurgents who abducted him three weeks ago.

Assailants killed an Iraqi deputy foreign minister today in an ambush that occurred as he was travelling to his Baghdad office, the Foreign Ministry said.

A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up near the home of a prominent Kurdish politician in Sulaymaniyah, northern Iraq tonight, officials said.