At least 19 people, including four soldiers, were killed in a suicide bombing today, as gunmen in military fatigues kidnapped 29 people, the latest victims of the violence and lawlessness sweeping Iraq, police said.

Two car bombs rocked northern Baghdad neighbourhoods today while another struck a Shiite holy city, in attacks that left at least 16 dead and 49 wounded, police and provincial officials said.

A suicide bomber attacked a crowd of people waiting outside a heavily-guarded court building in Baghdad today, killing 10 Iraqis and wounding 47.

A car bomb exploded in Baghdad today, killing eight civilians and wounding 46.

The Muslim pilgrims’ road to the holy city of Karbala became a highway of bullets and bombs for Shiites yesterday. Drive-by shootings and roadside and bus bombs killed or wounded 19 people, ratcheting up the sectarian tensions gripping Iraq.

Heliborne US and Iraqi troops pressed their sweep through a 100-square-mile section of central Iraq today in a bid to break up a centre of insurgent resistance, the US military said. No casualties were reported on either side.

A suicide bomber and a huge car bomb ripped apart a market in Baghdad’s Sadr City Shiite slum shortly before dusk today, killing at least 37 and wounding 95.

Iraqi officials today said 16 people were killed in two bombings in Baghdad that targeted a petrol station and a nearby market.

A suicide car bomber targeted an Iraqi police patrol near the heavily-fortified Green Zone today, killing two civilians and a policeman. Six Iraqis were wounded, including five more policemen.

Police found the bullet-riddled bodies of 23 men today who had been kidnapped north of Baghdad during the week after being rejected entry into a police training academy.

Iraqi police in Beiji said US aircraft bombed a house last night and that seven people were killed and four injured, Capt Arkan Jassim said.

A Baghdad prison inmate grabbed an assault rifle from a guard and opened fire on other guards and prisoners, killing at least eight people and injuring three, police said.

A brother of one of Iraq’s two vice presidents was shot and killed today on his way to work in Baghdad, officials said.

A suicide bomber killed sixteen policemen in Baghdad today, a day after the capital suffered its bloodiest day as US troops and insurgents clashed in the troubled western town of Ramadi.

Sixteen policemen and five civilians were killed today when a suicide bomber drove his car into a convoy of police vehicles in Baghdad’s southern Dora district, police said.

GUNMEN killed an aide to Iraq’s most influential Shi’ite cleric and two bodyguards in a drive-by shooting outside a Baghdad mosque yesterday — an attack likely to stoke tensions between the Shi’ite majority and the Sunni minority, officials said.

A suicide bomber detonated his car near a checkpoint outside the offices of Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari’s Islamic Dawa Party today, killing one guard and injuring at least one more.