Police in Lahore today said they were holding some Islamic militants who may have had links with the suspects in the London suicide bombings, as investigators try to assess whether extremists in Pakistan were involved in the July 7 attacks.

A total of 20 movies from China to Iraq and Canada are to compete for top honour at the Cannes Film Festival in May, organisers announced today.

A reporter with Time Magazine has received video footage of a suicide bomber chronicling his final hours right up to his deadly mission.

A tape recording purportedly made by al-Qaida-linked militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi threatened to assassinate Iraq’s interim prime minister and said the fight against “infidels” would continue “until Islamic rule is back on earth”.

A group linked to al-Qaida today claimed responsibility for a Baghdad suicide attack that targeted an Iraqi deputy minister, the second fatal bombing it has claimed in a week.

Five people were killed when a car bomb exploded in front of the home of a senior Iraqi security official in east Baghdad today, the US military and Iraqi police said.

The US governor of Iraq said today that the transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis must go ahead as scheduled despite the killing of the head of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council in a suicide bombing.

THE head of the Iraqi Governing Council was assassinated in a suicide car bombing near a checkpoint outside the coalition headquarters in central Baghdad yesterday.

Wall Street, already beset by worries about the economy and world events, skidded even lower today on news that the head of Iraq’s governing council had been assassinated. The Dow fell more than 100 points.

The head of Iraqi Governing Council was killed today in a car bombing near a US checkpoint in central Baghdad, an Iraqi official said.

A large area around the scene of the New Year party shootings was cordoned off today as police continued their investigation into the murders.