Increased attacks by insurgents over the past two days have killed at least 44 Iraqis, including 12 labourers – five of them brothers – who were gunned down at a construction site.

A suicide car bomber killed two Iraqis and wounded five today in an attack on a police patrol in an area of Baghdad where insurgents had kidnapped and murdered a defence lawyer in Saddam Hussein’s trial last week, police said.

A suicide car bomber was among 11 people killed in an attack north of Baghdad, Iraqi police and hospital officials said today.