Two bombs exploded seconds apart in a predominantly Shiite commercial area in central Baghdad today, killing at least 78 people and wounding at least 156, said Iraqi police and Deputy Health Minister Hakim al-Zamili.

A British soldier was killed when a roadside bomb hit an army patrol in southern Iraq 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.

A suicide bomber blew himself up among mourners at a funeral in Saddam Hussein’s hometown today, killing at least 10 people and injuring another 18, police said.

Heavily-armed attackers rampaged through an open air market today in a tense, religiously mixed community south of Baghdad, killing 15 people and wounding 25.

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 mortar barrage killed nine Iraqi civilians and wounded 40 in southern Baghdad today, police said.

As Iraqis awaited the inauguration of their new national unity government, roadside bombs and other attacks killed 10 Iraqis and wounded 26 people today, including a US soldier riding through Baghdad in a minesweeper.

Assailants in speeding cars gunned down a police commando as he was leaving his house in south Baghdad today, and drive-by shooters killed a lawyer as she got out of a taxi in the southern city of Basra, police said.

Gunmen lined up 14 employees working at an electronics trading company in Baghdad this morning and shot them all, killing eight and wounding six, police said.

A 13-YEAR-OLD boy was killed by a roadside bomb as he walked to school in the southern city of Basra, one of more than 20 victims of violence that continued to rattle Iraq yesterday as political leaders remained deadlocked over a new government.

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.

The body of the only American among four Christian peace activists kidnapped late last year was found near a west Baghdad railway line with gunshots to his head and chest, Iraqi police said today.

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.

A brother of one of Iraq’s two vice presidents was shot and killed today on his way to work in Baghdad, officials said.

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.

IRAQ’S president urged a spirit of compromise as political leaders gathered yesterday to try to resolve differences over a new constitution that is supposed to be approved by parliament next Monday.

Al-Qaida in Iraq said in a web posting today that it had killed Egypt’s top envoy in Iraq, showing a video of the blindfolded diplomat identifying himself. The video did not show his death.

Gunmen killed four policemen and wounded at least nine more in separate attacks in Baghdad today. The reputed leader of al Qaida in Iraq said the country’s security forces were as great an enemy as the Americans and brushed aside calls to abandon the insurgency.

Gunmen ambushed two more top diplomats from Muslim countries in apparent kidnap bids that seemed aimed at scaring off foreign governments and isolating Iraq from the Arab world.

Three people were killed and about a dozen were injured today in three separate explosions in Baghdad.

War started in Iraq early today with a bold attempt to assassinate Saddam Hussein with cruise missiles and precision guided bombs.