A series of car bombs exploded across Iraq’s capital tonight, killing at least 52 people in a day of violence that saw militants storm a university in the country’s restive Anbar province and take dozens hostage, authorities said.

A suicide bomber blew himself up among a crowd of Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad and another detonated his explosives inside a cafe north of the capital, the deadliest of several attacks across Iraq today which killed at least 48 people.

A wave of a dozen car bombings hit in and around the Iraqi capital during morning rush hour today, officials said, killing at least 36 people in the latest co-ordinated attack by insurgents determined to undermine the government.

Al-Qaida has said it was behind raids on two high-security prisons on the outskirts of Baghdad this week that killed dozens and set free hundreds of inmates, including some of its followers.

A bomb has exploded inside a Sunni mosque in central Iraq during midday prayers, killing at least 15 people.

A car bomb in a Shiite suburb of Baghdad has killed four people and wounded 12 others.

At least 14 people have been killed in clashes between Sunni protesters and security forces in a northern Sunni town, Iraqi officials said today.

Iraqi insurgents unleashed a new wave of bombings across the country today, targeting security forces and civilians and killing at least 12 people, officials said.

A series of bombings in northern Iraq killed at least 10 people today, officials said.

Attacks across Iraq including a car bombing in a northern city have left five people dead, officials said.

THOUSANDS marched on government buildings and clashed with security forces in cities across Iraq yesterday, in the largest and most violent anti-government protests here since political unrest began spreading in the Arab world several weeks ago.

Security forces have killed five people in northern Iraq as thousands of protesters rallied in cities across the country for a “Day of Rage.”

A suicide car bomb exploded at a checkpoint manned by Sunni tribesmen in northern Iraq today, wounding four of the men, police said.

At least 19 people, including four soldiers, were killed in a suicide bombing today, as gunmen in military fatigues kidnapped 29 people, the latest victims of the violence and lawlessness sweeping Iraq, police said.

Unidentified assailants shot a senior intelligence official dead in his car today and police discovered the bullet riddled bodies of three men, a day after gunmen beheaded five people.

Police in Iraq today discovered the bodies of two men, shot in the head and chest, a day after gunmen beheaded four policemen and a lawyer.

AMERICAN and Iraqi troops swept the oil-rich region of Kirkuk for suspected insurgents and captured dozens, while drive-by shootings, roadside bombings and sectarian violence killed at least 29 people in Iraq yesterday.

The body of the only American among four Christian peace activists kidnapped late last year was found near a west Baghdad railway line with gunshots to his head and chest, Iraqi police said today.

Bomb blasts, shootings and rocket-propelled grenade attacks killed at least 13 people throughout Iraq, including a policeman’s four children, officials said today.

AT least 43 people were killed and another 89 injured yesterday in three car bomb attacks near a bus station and hospital in Baghdad.

Three car bomb attacks near a bus station and hospital in Baghdad killed at least 43 people and wounded another 89 today, in the deadliest attacks in the capital in weeks. Survivors searched through charred buses and cars for signs of friends and relatives.

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.

Four bombings, including three suicide attacks within seven minutes, killed at least nine people, including at least three Iraqi soldiers, in northern Iraq early today, while the government announced it has detained nearly 900 suspected militants in a two-week sweep in Baghdad.

A STRING of bombings in Iraqi cities - including one by a man with explosives strapped to his body - killed more than 60 people and wounded more than 100 yesterday.

A string of bombings in Iraqi cities – including one by a man with explosives strapped to his body – killed more than 60 people and wounded more than 100 today as US troops pushed on in an offensive aimed at followers of Iraq’s most-wanted terrorist.

A man with explosives hidden under his clothes set them off while standing in a line of job applicants waiting outside a police and army recruitment centre in northern Iraq today, killing 30 people and wounding 35, police said.

Using car bombs and a man with explosives strapped to his body, insurgents killed more than 60 people in three Iraqi cities today, police said.

Four Iraqis were killed in a US airstrike in central Iraq while five American soldiers and an Iraqi civilian were wounded in a car bomb explosion north of Baghdad, according to reports.

Insurgents renewed attacks on United States troops and Iraq’s security forces today, killing five police officers, including a general, and wounding 14 American soldiers in continuing attempts to derail the coming elections.

The Iraqi government sent reinforcements to the country’s third-largest city, Mosul, today, seeking to quell a militant uprising that US officials fear is in support of the resistance in Fallujah – now said to be under 80% US control.

US troops have arrested at least 20 insurgents in a raid in northern Iraq, but they failed to capture their main target – Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a former Saddam deputy and the King of Clubs in the most wanted list.

AMERICAN troops carried out a raid near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk yesterday but a military spokesman denied that a top former deputy of Saddam Hussein was captured during the operation.

TWO US soldiers were killed and one was wounded in an ambush north of Baghdad while insurgents attacked a convoy setting off huge explosions in several vehicles.

Two US soldiers were killed and one was wounded in an ambush in Kirkuk today.