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 barrage of co-ordinated bomb and rocket attacks in eastern Baghdad killed at least 47 people and wounded more than 200 within half an hour, police and hospital officials 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.

A former top official of Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard, and cousin of the deposed leader, surrendered to coalition forces in Baghdad today, the US military said.