Airline passengers bound for the US faced a jumbled mix of new security measures across Europe today, but not all airports appeared to be following a request for extra screening of those from 14 named countries.

Hundreds of Iraqi police and army troops fanned out across Baghdad yesterday, setting up checkpoints and fortifying polling stations with barbed wire and blast barriers two days ahead of a historic constitutional referendum.

The British company at the centre of a cash row which has closed Baghdad’s International Airport today defended its decision to suspend its key operations at the site.

Baghdad’s International Airport was closed today after the British company providing security suspended operations because of a payments dispute with Iraq’s Ministry of Transport, officials said.

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.