Iraqi delegates delivered a peace proposal to aides of Muqtada al-Sadr in Najaf, but the militant cleric refused to meet with them as explosions, gunfire and a US air strike on the sprawling cemetery echoed across the holy city.

An Iraqi delegation sent by a national conference in Baghdad flew to besieged Najaf by helicopter today to present radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr with a peace proposal aimed at ending a violent insurgency wracking the holy city.

SADDAM HUSSEIN scrapped all Iraqi weapons of mass destruction after the first Gulf War, his chief nuclear scientist has claimed.

The Iraqi Interior Ministry said today it had “no intention” of arresting former Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi in the near future on counterfeiting charges, despite an arrest warrant issued by an Iraqi court.

A suicide bomber drove a minibus rigged with explosives at a police station south of Baghdad today, killing at least five people and wounding 25.

A series of co-ordinated explosions rocked churches across Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul today in the first attacks targeting the country’s Christian minority during the 15-month violent insurgency.

A SUICIDE car bomber struck near a US base in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul and assassins gunned down a senior Interior Ministry official in spiralling violence that left eight people dead yesterday.

A senior Interior Ministry official and two of his bodyguards were shot dead in a drive-by shooting at the official’s home in Baghdad today.