Revenge-seeking militiamen seized six Sunnis as they left prayers and burned them alive with kerosene in a savage new twist to the brutality shaking the Iraqi capital.

A series of attacks by suspected insurgents using guns, bombs and mortar shells killed a total of 13 Iraqis in Baghdad today.

Two hidden bombs exploded today on a football pitch, killing nine youths, as two mortars landed while another football match was underway, killing three children, police said.

A series of car bombs in three different Iraqi cities today left at least seven people dead and dozens wounded.

Gunmen in Baghdad hunted down three different government employees and shot them dead on their way to work today.

A roadside bomb killed three Iraqi soldiers in north-east Iraq today, and six people were wounded in attacks by insurgents on four of Baghdad’s 1,200polling stations during the country’s constitutional referendum, police said.

A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb north of Baghdad today, killing 12 Iraqis – all but one of them National Guards – in another strike against those co-operating with American forces, the US military said.

A car bomb exploded next to an Iraqi police station just outside Baghdad’s Green Zone today, killing six Iraqi policemen and wounding 10, an Iraqi security official said. It was the second major attack in two days targeting Iraqi police in the capital.

In some of the worst violence in recent weeks in Baghdad, rebels launched attacks against Iraqi security forces in the capital today, killing at least 30 people.