A car bomb ripped through a market in southern Iraq’s Shiite heartland today as shoppers were buying meat and vegetables, killing about 30 people and wounding dozens more, officials said.

US-led forces captured a senior al-Qaida leader who was responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths and housed foreign fighters who carried out suicide bombings, the US military said today.

Rescue crews pulled bodies from the rubble of bombed buildings today, the day after a barrage of co-ordinated attacks across eastern Baghdad neighbourhoods killed at least 64 people and wounded more than 280 within half an hour, police said.

A series of attacks in eastern Baghdad this evening killed at least 39 people and wounded 115 within half an hour, police said.

Iraqi forces will take over security control of a southern province from coalition troops next month, state-run television quoted the prime minister as saying today.