Seventeen people were killed in bomb attacks across Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, today, including Iranian pilgrims near a revered shrine and shoppers at a Shiite neighbourhood market, authorities said.

Two car bombs exploded in Baghdad today as commuters were starting their working week, killing at least 23 people and wounding dozens of others, Iraqi officials said.

At least 12 people in Baghdad were killed by bombs targeting hundreds of thousands of pilgrims taking part in the final day of a Shiite religious holiday today.

Four policemen were killed today in one of a series of fatal attacks in Iraq, officials said.

INSURGENTS bombed a polling station and lobbed grenades at voters yesterday, killing 36 people in attacks aimed at intimidating those taking part in an election that will determine whether the country can overcome the sectarian divisions that have plagued it since the 2003 US-led invasion.

Iraqis voted today in an election testing the mettle of the country’s still-fragile democracy as insurgents killed 25 people across the Iraq, unleashing a barrage of mortars intent on disrupting the historic day.

A woman suicide bomber killed at least 41 people in an attack on Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad today.

Back-to-back suicide bombings have killed at least 60 people outside the most important Shiite shrine in Baghdad, Iraqi police officials said today.

A bomb killed at least 18 people and wounded 25 in a busy Baghdad square, the US military said today.

Bombs tore through a Shiite pilgrimage in Baghdad and a Kurdish rally in northern Iraq today killing at least 40 people and wounding scores more.

A car bomb exploded near the Iranian Embassy today in Baghdad, killing at least two civilians and wounding five, police said.

Tens of thousands of Shiite protesters took to the streets today over the government’s crackdown against militias in Basra as heavy fighting between Iraqi security forces and gunmen erupted for a third day in the southern oil port and Baghdad.

Tens of thousands of Shiite protesters took to the streets today over the government's crackdown against militias in Basra as heavy fighting between Iraqi security forces and gunmen erupted for a third day in the southern oil port and Baghdad.

At least 20 people were killed in Iraq today in violence against Shiite pilgrims marking the Ashoura holy day.

At least seven people were killed and another seven wounded when gunmen ambushed a Baghdad bus carrying Shiite pilgrims marking the Ashoura holy day in Iraq today.

The official video of hanging of Saddam Hussein's co-defendants screened for reporters today shows the former leader's half brother lying headless below gallows, his severed head several yards away.

The half-brother of Saddam Hussein and the former head of Iraq’s Revolutionary Court were hanged before dawn today, two weeks and two days after the former dictator was executed in a disturbing scene that drew worldwide criticism.

Baghdad was busy today after a two-day lockdown during a Shiite religious commemoration that was disrupted by sniper attacks on pilgrims in another spasm of sectarian bloodletting.

At least 20 people were killed and dozens more were wounded when snipers opened fire from rooftops and a cemetery in a series of attacks on a Shiite religious procession in Baghdad.

Snipers firing from rooftops and a cemetery today killed at least 16 people and injured 230 in a series of attacks on a religious procession in Baghdad, officials said.

Sniper attacks on a Shiite religious procession left 10 pilgrims dead and 43 injured in several places in Baghdad today.

An uneasy silence cloaked the streets of Baghdad today at the start of a two-day vehicle ban aimed at preventing attacks during a major Shiite religious gathering. Seven pilgrims hoping to join the rally were shot dead in a Sunni neighbourhood.

US forces seized hundreds of mortar rounds and rockets in a Sunni neighbourhood of Baghdad today, and detained two suspected terrorists.

Gunmen kidnapped the head of Iraq’s Olympic committee and at least 30 employees today after storming a meeting of sports officials just days after the coach of Iraq’s national wrestling team was killed.

Iraqi army forces arrested a high-level insurgent today who was wanted for running an assassination cell in Baghdad.

Gunmen seized 10 workers from a bakery today in a predominantly Shiite neighbourhood in Baghdad, while a car bomb in the northern city of Mosul killed one woman and wounded 19 other people, police said.

Insurgents killed more than three dozen people in a series of attacks that foiled stringent security measures around Baghdad after an al-Qaida threat to stage bloody reprisals for the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

A rash of bombings in Baghdad killed at least 30 people and injured dozens, police said.

Three roadside bombs killed a US Army soldier and two Iraqi civilians, and police found the bodies of four Iraqi men in Baghdad who apparently had been kidnapped and tortured.

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.

Suspected insurgents killed three Iraqi policemen and wounded another in a drive-by shooting in west Baghdad this morning.

Thousands of Shiite Muslims marched through the streets of a northern Baghdad neighbourhood today carrying 17 wooden coffins with the bodies of fellow Shiites killed while returning home from a pilgrimage to the holy city of Karbala.

Sunnis and Shiites have traded bombings and mortar fire against mainly religious targets in Baghdad, killing at least 68 people after authorities lifted a curfew that had briefly calmed a series of sectarian reprisal attacks.

TWO explosions hit Shi’ite targets in war-torn Iraq after sundown yesterday, killing at least 15 people and raising the death toll for the day to at least 56.

Two explosions hit Shiite targets in northern Baghdad after sundown today, killing at least 15 people and wounding 72, police said. The attacks raised the death toll for the day to at least 56.

A Baghdad prison inmate grabbed an assault rifle from a guard and opened fire on other guards and prisoners, killing at least eight people and injuring three, police said.

Gunmen killed two relatives of a senior Kurdish official and 14 others died in a string of bombings and shootings overnight and today, shattering three days of relative calm that followed the country’s first election for a full-term parliament.

Iraqi authorities tallied millions of ballots today from elections to choose a parliament in a mostly peaceful election – among the freest ever in the Arab world.

IRAQIS gathered around televisions to watch Saddam Hussein's trial yesterday, with Shi'ite victims of his regime calling the proceedings long-overdue justice, but some Sunni Arabs condemning it as unfair humiliation of the former leader.

Hundreds of Iraqi police and army troops fanned out across Baghdad yesterday, setting up checkpoints and fortifying polling stations with barbed wire and blast barriers two days ahead of a historic constitutional referendum.

A leading Sunni cleric called for religious and ethnic groups to take a stand against violence as Iraq endured a third consecutive day of sectarian killings - the worst, a suicide car bombing at a Shiite mosque that killed at least 12 worshippers.

A suicide car bomber struck worshippers leaving a Shiite mosque in Tuz Khormato in northern Iraq today, killing at least 10 people and wounding 21 others.

Two suicide car bombers struck within a minute of each other and just half a mile apart in south Baghdad today, killing at least seven policemen and raising the day’s bombing death toll in the capital to at least 31.

A suicide bomber killed sixteen policemen in Baghdad today, a day after the capital suffered its bloodiest day as US troops and insurgents clashed in the troubled western town of Ramadi.