Syrian rebels have gained control of a strategic hospital in the city of Aleppo despite days of relentless barrel-bombings of opposition-held areas in the northern city, activists say.

A roadside bomb rocked an eastern Baghdad Shiite neighbourhood early today, killing at least 11 people and injuring 19 others when it exploded next to buses used by morning commuters.

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 STATEMENT signed by an Iraqi insurgent group said yesterday in an internet posting that it had killed a kidnapped US security consultant.

A US ARMOURED force punched into the heart of Baghdad yesterday and established a stronghold in one of President Saddam Hussein’s palaces, while troops in central Iraq found a cache of suspected Iraqi chemical weapons.