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.

BRITISH and Australian forces yesterday handed over security responsibility for the relatively peaceful Muthanna province to Iraqi forces in the first such transfer of an entire province.