A pair of suicide bombs ripped through a crowd of would-be police recruits in Baghdad on today, killing at least 35.

At least 44 people were killed today in Iraq’s spiralling violence, including 20 soldiers whose bus was blasted by a roadside bomb.

MASKED gunmen assassinated a Sunni Arab cleric who had headed the city council in once-restive Fallujah yesterday.

US jets bombed two insurgent “safe houses” near the Syrian border today in an attack aimed at al-Qaida in Iraq.

Three US soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad, and five Iraqis died in other insurgent attacks today.