A SERIES of bombings hit Baghdad, killing at least 69 people in the first big assault on Iraq’s capital since a sectarian crisis erupted within its government days after the US troop withdrawal.

A FEMALE suicide bomber walking among Shi’ite pilgrims in Baghdad detonated an explosives belt yesterday, killing at least 54 people and wounding more than 122, officials said.

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

A suicide bomber targeting Shiite pilgrims in northern Baghdad killed at least 13 people today.

BOMBS exploded near five Shiite mosques in Baghdad, killing at least 29 people, in an apparent co-ordinated attack that targeted worshippers leaving Friday prayers, Iraqi police and hospital officials said.

At least 20 people were killed today after a car bomb exploded in a busy commercial street in a mostly Shiite area of north Baghdad.

A car bomb targeting Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad killed six and wounded 11, Iraqi police said today.

A suicide bomber targeting a gathering of Iraqi soldiers and civilians commemorating Army Day killed at least 11 people in central Baghdad today, police said.

At least eight people were killed today by a suicide bomber targeting a gathering of Iraqi soldiers and civilians commemorating Army Day in central Baghdad.

American troops killed up to four bank staff on their way to work in Baghdad today after firing on their minibus.

Iraq was handed control of security in the mainly Shiite province of Karbala today, the eighth of the nation's 18 provinces to come out of military rule.

Two Iraqi suicide car bombers trying to murder a local police chief and a US-supporting Sunni leader killed at least 18 people today.

The Iraqi Cabinet signed off on a revised bill to share the country’s oil wealth today and sent it to parliament – a major step in reaching a long-delayed benchmark sought by the US to promote reconciliation between Iraq’s Sunnis and Shiites.

A suicide car bomber struck an Iraqi army checkpoint south of Baghdad today, killing at least 12 soldiers and wounding 30, police said.

A parked car struck a convoy of Iraqi police commandos and gunmen opened fire on police on a foot patrol in a mostly Shiite neighbourhood in Baghdad today, police said, a day after gunmen stormed a senior Iraqi police officer’s home north-east of the capital.

A parked car exploded near a hospital in Baghdad’s main Shiite district today - the deadliest in a series of bombings killed at least nine people and wounded dozens in Iraq, police said.

Suicide bombers in cars and on foot struck markets crowded with shoppers in predominantly Shiite areas in Baghdad and north of the capital today, killing more than 100 people, police said.

A car bomb killed five people today and wounded another 34 after it exploded near a restaurant in central Baghdad, police said.

Two Iraqi soldiers were killed and 10 more injured early today when a suicide car bomb slammed into a checkpoint in northeast Baghdad, police said.

Gunmen kidnapped a Sunni female member of parliament in Baghdad today along with her guards, the parliament speaker’s office said.

Gunmen raided a parking garage in north-east Baghdad today, killing 18 people and injuring at least 37, police said.

IRAQI politicians were urged yesterday to speed up negotiations to form a new government.

Two car bombs exploded this evening near a Shiite Muslim mosque in north-east Baghdad, killing at least six people and injuring 31, police and paramedics at the scene said.

Increased attacks by insurgents over the past two days have killed at least 44 Iraqis, including 12 labourers – five of them brothers – who were gunned down at a construction site.

A suicide car bomber killed two Iraqis and wounded five today in an attack on a police patrol in an area of Baghdad where insurgents had kidnapped and murdered a defence lawyer in Saddam Hussein’s trial last week, police said.

The body of a defence lawyer in Saddam Hussein’s mass murder trial was found dumped in the street with two bullet wounds in the head hours after gunmen dragged him from his office, terrorising the defence team, who today demanded the trial be further postponed or even moved out of Iraq.

A senior lawyers’ union official in Baghdad has said the kidnapped lawyer of one of Saddam Hussein’s co-defendants has been killed and that his body has been found.

Members of a Shiite Muslim militia raided a house in Baghdad and freed four hostages including Syrian and Lebanese citizens, an official in radical cleric’s Muqtada al-Sadr office said today.

SIX car bombs targeted US and Iraqi troops across Baghdad yesterday, killing as many as 20 people, and the military said two US Marines died the day before in a roadside bombing near the Jordanian border.

Bassem Mroue, Baghdad

SADDAM HUSSEIN launched his first major offensive out of Baghdad last night, dispatching his elite Republican Guards to confront American troops in central Iraq.

Military chiefs hinted today that they believed Saddam Hussein’s regime may have been responsible for the daylight bombing of a Baghdad market which left many civilians dead.

Iraqi officials in Baghdad said many people were killed today when an allied air strike hit a busy marketplace.