Gunmen have abducted a French engineer in Baghdad, Iraqi police said today.

A roadside bomb exploded near a US military convoy in Baghdad today, missing the soldiers but killing a seven-year-old boy who was selling cans of black-market petrol on the street and wounding nine other civilians.

Two suicide car bombs exploded in Baghdad today, and one was followed up by a roadside bomb that hit Iraqi policemen racing to the scene, police said.

A suicide car bomb hit a convoy of government cars in Baghdad today, seriously wounding four bodyguards of a government minister.

Insurgents determined to wreck Iraq’s constitutional referendum killed nearly 45 people and wounded dozens in a series of attacks today, including a suicide car-bomb that ripped apart a crowded market in a town near the Syrian border, police said.

A suicide car bomb exploded at an Iraqi army checkpoint in western Baghdad today, killing nine people and wounding 12, most of them soldiers, police said.

Insurgents in Iraq launched a new salvo of attacks five days ahead of the country’s crucial constitutional referendum, killing at least 18 Iraqis and a US soldier with suicide car bombs, roadside bombs and drive-by shootings today, police said.