A mortar barrage slammed into a mainly Shiite east Baghdad neighbourhood today, killing 12 and wounding 31, police said.

A group of gunmen in two cars attacked a minibus in Iraq today, killing seven passengers, including a child, police said.

The US military today announced the deaths of seven more soldiers in Iraq, including four killed by a roadside bomb while they were patrolling western Baghdad, as casualties mount during a month-old security crackdown.

The Iraqi government declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew today after insurgent gunmen set up roadblocks in central Baghdad and opened fire on US and Iraqi troops just north of the heavily fortified Green Zone.

A bomb struck a Sunni mosque in a town north-east of Baghdad, killing 10 worshippers and wounding 15 in the same town where Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in Iraq earlier this month.