US forces battled rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s gunmen in a Baghdad slum in clashes today that killed 34 people, including one American soldier, and wounded 193.

US military officials and representatives of rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr held talks today aimed at reducing violence in the restive Baghdad slum of Sadr City, a day after clashes there killed 10 people, officials said.

A SUICIDE car bomb exploded on a busy Iraqi street yesterday, killing at least 68 people - almost all civilians - in one of the deadliest single insurgent attacks since the US invasion.

A suicide car bomber struck outside a police recruiting centre today, killing 68 Iraqis and turning the busy streets of Baqouba into a bloody tangle of twisted metal and dead bodies.

A huge explosion detonated by a suicide attacker in a bomb-laden lorry tore through central Baqouba today, killing 51 people and injuring scores more.

THE Iraqi government issued a long-anticipated package of security laws yesterday to help crush insurgents, including a provision allowing interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi to impose martial law.

A suicide bomber rammed his 4X4 vehicle packed with artillery shells into a crowd of Iraqi army volunteers in Baghdad today, and the massive explosion that followed killed at least 35 people and wounding 138.