Eighteen people were killed and more than 50 injured when bombs struck two Sunni towns at sundown, just as Iraqis were preparing to break their holy day’s fast.

THE bodies of a Sunni policeman and four of his family members were found on the outskirts of a village north of Baghdad yesterday morning, just hours after they were abducted from their home by gunmen, authorities 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.