Eight people were killed today when a car bomb exploded near a pair of off licence stores in south-west Baghdad, Iraqi medical and police officials said.

A coroner has found that the deaths of two British airmen shot down by an American Patriot missile defence system at the beginning of the Iraq war were “entirely avoidable“.

A parked car bomb exploded in south-west Baghdad today, killing six people and wounding 36, police and hospital officials said.

Two US soldiers were killed by gunfire during combat operations in south-west Baghdad, the U.S. military said today.