The US military says it will begin moving thousands of prisoners out of Abu Ghraib prison to a new jail near Baghdad’s airport within three months and hand the notorious facility over to Iraqi authorities as soon as possible.

US ARMY documents released yesterday revealed that troops have seized and jailed the wives of suspected Iraqi insurgents in the hope of “leveraging their husbands to surrender”.

Former Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Hamza al-Zubaidi has died at a US military hospital in Baghdad, an American military spokesman said today.

A suicide car bomber attacked a police patrol today on a busy commercial street, killing at least 17 people and wounding 26, officials said.