Five US soldiers were shot dead at an American base in Baghdad today.

US President George Bush today made a farewell visit to Iraq just 37 days before he hands over to a successor who has pledged to end the war.

SIX teenage boys who said they were being trained as suicide bombers were detained yesterday in the northern city of Mosul, Iraqi officials said.

US vice president Dick Cheney opened a new push for political unity in Iraq on an unannounced visit today, just ahead of the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion.

Iraq’s political leaders are showing promising new signs of progress towards reconciliation, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said today.

A rocket or mortar attack on the main American base near Baghdad killed two US-led forces and wounded 40 people.

Gunmen ambushed an Iraqi police checkpoint in northern Iraq before dawn today, killing six officers in a sophisticated attack on fledgling Iraqi security installations, police said.

A hearing opens in Iraq today to determine whether a US officer should be court-martialed for charges including aiding the enemy.

The general who will lead Iraqi forces in a security crackdown in Baghdad takes charge today.

The general who will lead Iraqi forces in a security crackdown in Baghdad takes charge tomorrow.

Fierce fighting between coalition forces and insurgents shut down the city of Baqouba, north of Baghdad, today and gunfire crackled across the capital, as Prime Minister Nouri Maliki travelled to Jordan for a summit with US President George Bush aimed at halting the country’s escalating sectarian violence and paving the way for a reduction of American troops.

At least seven people were reported killed and 11 injured today in scattered bombings, mortar and gun fire in Iraq’s beleaguered capital, police said.

The US military today said it would release five female Iraqi detainees, a move demanded by the kidnappers of an American reporter to spare her life.

THE world will be watching Saddam’s trial to see whether Iraq’s new Shi’ite and Kurdish leaders can rise above politics and prejudice and give the former dictator a fair hearing.

Deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is in high spirits and “very optimistic” on the eve of the start of his trial for allegedly ordering the massacre of Shiite Muslims, his defence lawyer said today.

US and Iraqi troops swept into the insurgent stronghold of Tal Afar early today, conducting house-to-house searches and battering down walls with armoured vehicles in a second bid to clean the city of militant fighters.

Baghdad International Airport – the country’s only reliable and relatively safe link to the outside world – reopened today after being closed for a day over a cash dispute between the government and a British company providing security there.

US National Guard troops from Louisiana and other Gulf states won’t be pulled out of Iraq ahead of schedule, despite the devastation from Hurricane Katrina, the US command said today.

An indefinite curfew was imposed Wednesday for all vehicle and pedestrian traffic in the central Iraqi city of Samarra, following an attack on a US convoy in the area, the US military and Iraqi police said.

A senior Baghdad International Airport official was abducted today by gunmen, along with his driver and another companion, police said.

An internet statement posted today and purportedly issued by al Qaida in Iraq warned all Sunni Muslims to avoid targets in Iraq that militants are likely to attack.

A STRING of four bomb attacks within seven minutes killed at least 18 people and wounded 39 in northern Iraq yesterday, while a Baghdad carbomb injured 28, officials said.

A co-ordinated string of four bomb attacks within seven minutes killed at least 18 people and wounded 39 in northern Iraq today, while a Baghdad car bomb injured 28, officials said, ending a relative lull in violence that had fallen over the country in recent days.

Iraqi officials said today that May’s increase in militant attacks has resulted in more Iraqis killed than the previous month. A suicide car bombing, the most popular method of killing in that same period, wounded 15 Iraqis at the main checkpoint to Baghdad’s International Airport.

A suicide bomber targeting American forces exploded his vehicle near the heavily guarded main checkpoint to Baghdad International Airport today, Iraqi police said.

An explosion has occurred near the main checkpoint to Baghdad International Airport today, the US military said.

Attacks against Baghdad’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison may force the US military to return the facility to Iraq’s government and take their own high-security prisoners to a safer place, a US military official said.

A judge on the special tribunal that will put Saddam Hussein and members of his former regime on trial was assassinated in the Iraqi capital, according to an Iraqi police official and a media report.

A lawyer for Saddam Hussein today condemned plans to try the former Iraqi leader in a US-funded special court, saying it is illegitimate, and said that he and other members of Saddam’s defence team have been denied access to him.

Recent information links one of Saddam Hussein’s most notorious former generals to the massacres of Shiites in southern Iraq, a human rights group said today.

Gunmen waylaid a minibus carrying foreign technicians to their jobs at a mobile telephone company in western Baghdad today, seizing four Egyptians in the second kidnapping of foreigners in the Iraqi capital within a week.

IRAQI militants are claiming to hold a US soldier hostage and have threatened to behead him in 72 hours unless the US releases Iraqi prisoners.

An al-Qaida suicide driver detonated a car bomb at a guard post outside the Iraqi prime minister’s party headquarters in Baghdad today, injuring at least 10 people.

A WAVE of car bombings shook the Iraqi capital Baghdad yesterday, killing at least 12 people as rebels stepped up their offensive to block the January 30 national election.

A roadside explosion and three separate car bombs – one near the prime minister’s party headquarters in Baghdad – killed at least 16 people in Iraq today.

A third car bomb exploded later today at a US-manned checkpoint to the Baghdad Green Zone, the heavily-fortified area that houses the US embassy and Iraqi government offices.

War crimes trials against Iraq’s former Baath Party leaders will begin next week, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said today.

INSURGENTS launched two major attacks yesterday against a Shi’ite mosque and a police station in Baghdad, killing 30 people, including at least 16 police officers, the deadliest insurgent violence in weeks.

Three people were killed and about a dozen were injured today in three separate explosions in Baghdad.

Saddam Hussein is living like a king in US military custody, an adviser to the Iraqi interim prime minister claims.

Insurgents stormed two police stations in Iraq’s strife-ridden city of Mosul, killing at least six Iraqi troops as attacks spread throughout Sunni Muslim areas following the US-led assault on Fallujah.

The Iraqi government plans to reopen Baghdad International Airport to civilian flights on Monday, the office of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said.

THOUSANDS of American troops, backed by armour and a heavy air barrage, punched their way into Fallujah last night, kicking off a massive assault dubbed Operation Phantom Fury that seeks to put an end to six months of insurgent control of the Iraqi city.

THE CIA interrogated and roughed up Iraqi prisoners in a “romper room”, where a handcuffed and hooded terror suspect was kicked, slapped and punched shortly before he died at the Abu Ghraib prison, a US Navy SEAL claimed.