Several attacks in and around Baghdad have killed at least 27 people on a particularly brutal day in the Iraqi capital.

Sunni fighters led by an al-Qaeda breakaway group expanded their offensive in a volatile western province, capturing three strategic towns and the first border crossing with Syria to fall on the Iraqi side.

Iraqi forces have captured what the government described today as a trusted aide to al-Qaida terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

A suicide car bomber struck at Iraqi military recruits north-west of Baghdad today, killing 10 men and wounding more than 20.