The US military brought a new weapon into the fight in Iraq, announcing the Army’s first-ever use of a drone aircraft to kill enemy fighters in Iraq.

A roadside bomb rocked an eastern Baghdad Shiite neighbourhood this morning, killing at least 13 people and injuring 25 others when it exploded next to buses used by morning commuters, police and hospital officials said.

A roadside bomb rocked an eastern Baghdad Shiite neighbourhood early today, killing at least 11 people and injuring 19 others when it exploded next to buses used by morning commuters.

Mortar shells rained down today on a girls’ secondary school in a mostly Sunni area of western Baghdad, killing five pupils and wounding 20, witnesses and police said. At least seven other people died in a series of bombings and shootings across the capital.

A series of bombings struck predominantly Shiite areas in Baghdad today, killing at least seven people and wounding dozens, police said, as insurgents persist in their relentless bid to terrorise the capital in the final days before US and Iraqi soldiers plan to begin a massive crackdown.

US and Iraqi forces arrested one of Muqtada al-Sadr’s top aides today in Baghdad, his office said, as pressure increases on the radical Shiite cleric’s militia ahead of a planned security sweep aimed at stemming the sectarian violence ransacking the capital.

A former Iraqi sporting official who was kidnapped along with more than two dozen others when gunmen burst into a conference centre was released today in eastern Baghdad, police and sports officials said.

Six people were killed during a raid before dawn today as American troops hunted down an al-Qaida suspect at a safehouse south of Baghdad, the US military said.

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

At least 24 bodies – many of them strangled – were found dumped in parts of Baghdad, Iraqi police said today.

At least 23 bodies – many of them hanged – were found dumped in parts of Baghdad today, Iraqi police said.

A STRING of suicide attacks aimed at Iraqi security forces killed at least 36 people and wounded 19 more in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul yesterday, the US military and police officials said.