Islamic extremists in Iraq killed 80 men from a Yazidi village and abducted their wives and children, eyewitnesses said today, insisting the religious community is still at risk after a week of US and Iraqi airstrikes on the militants.

Airstrikes pounded the area around Iraq’s largest dam today in an effort to drive out militants who captured it earlier this month, as reports emerged of the massacre of some 80 members of the Yazidi religious minority by Islamic extremists.

Islamic State militants have killed at least 500 members of Iraq’s Yazidi ethnic minority during their offensive in the north, Iraq’s human rights minister told Reuters yesterday.

A video posted online purports to show the leader of the Islamic State extremist group that has overrun much of Syria and Iraq delivering a sermon at a mosque in Iraq.

The unfolding debacle in Iraq has set off a furious — and drearily predictable — partisan dispute in Washington over who was more to blame: George W Bush or Barack Obama, writes Bill Powell

Sunni militants have captured the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar, close to the Syrian border, the mayor and residents said today.

Suicide attackers blew up explosives-laden vehicles next to an elementary school and a police station in a small northern Iraqi village on Sunday, killing at least 13 people, many of them children.

A series of car bombs exploded within minutes of each other as Iraqis were out shopping in and around Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 35 people in mainly Shiite areas.

Insurgents killed at least 64 people in a wave of attacks against Iraqi security forces today.

A roadside bomb has struck a bus carrying Iraqi soldiers today, killing nine people and injuring five others near the northern city of Mosul, officials said.

Eight people have been killed in an insurgent attack on a football match in northern Iraq.

A double truck bombing tore through a Shiite community near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul today, while a series of blasts struck Baghdad in a wave of pre-dawn violence which killed at least 40 people, according to officials.

A suicide bomber today killed at least 20 people and injured 40 near a judge’s house in northern Iraq, while bombs in Baghdad killed six people, authorities said.

The US military said 10 Iraqis were killed and 20 wounded in a suicide car bombing in the northern city of Tal Afar.

Ex-Iraqi deputy prime minister and former Pentagon favourite, Ahmad Chalabi, escaped a suicide car bomb attack on his convoy in Baghdad, an official in his office said today.

A US military helicopter fired a guided missile to kill a wanted al-Qaida in Iraq leader from Saudi Arabia who was responsible for the bombing deaths of five American soldiers, a spokesman said today.

Hundreds of thousands of Shiites beat their heads and chests and whipped themselves with chains today in Iraq as part of a holy day to honour the martyrdom of one of their most revered religious figures.

Iraq’s political crisis worsened today as five more ministers announced a boycott of Cabinet meetings – leaving the embattled prime minister’s unity government with no members affiliated with Sunni political factions.

At least 25 people were killed when a suicide bomber slammed his truck into a densely populated residential area in the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar today.

An al-Qaida front organisation posted a video today showing the execution-style murders of nine Iraqi security officers who were lined up blindfolded with their hands bound behind them and shot in the back of the head.

Al-Qaida-led Iraqi insurgents issued a video today purporting to show the killing of 20 kidnapped Iraqi police and soldiers, each shot in the head execution-style as they knelt in a row.

Iraq’s national traffic police chief escaped an assassination attempt today when gunmen ambushed his convoy in Baghdad.

Shiite militants and police enraged by massive truck bombings in the northwestern town of Tal Afar today went on a revenge spree against Sunni residents there, killing as many as 60 people, officials said.

At least 45 people were killed when off-duty Shiite policemen went on a revenge spree against Sunnis in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar today.

Off-duty Shiite policemen enraged by massive bombings in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar went on a revenge killing spree today, gunning down dozens of Sunni residents.

Two truck bombs simultaneously struck markets in Tal Afar today, killing at least 30 people and wounding dozens, police said.

FOUR Iraqi soldiers have been accused of raping a 50-year-old Sunni woman and the attempted rape of her two daughters in the second allegation of sexual assault levelled against Iraqi forces this week.

Four Iraqi soldiers have been accused of raping a 50-year-old Sunni woman and the attempted rape of her two daughters.

Gunmen ambushed a convoy carrying Shiite Muslim pilgrims home from Saudi Arabia in central Iraq today, killing at least nine people, a provincial governor said.

A suicide bomber killed four civilians in a crowd outside a police station today in the northern Iraqi city Tal Afar, police said.

Revenge-seeking militiamen seized six Sunnis as they left prayers and burned them alive with kerosene in a savage new twist to the brutality shaking the Iraqi capital.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan today urged calm Friday amid the “heinous” upsurge of violence in Iraq, saying the bloodshed is designed to widen sectarian divisions and further weaken national unity in the war-battered country.

A car bomb exploded in northern Iraq today, killing at least 22 people and wounding 26, police said.

At least six Iraqi soldiers have been killed and 10 wounded when a suicide bomber drove his explosives-rigged car into an army checkpoint in the northern city of Tal Afar today, the military said.

The brother of Iraq’s Sunni Arab vice president was killed early today in his Baghdad home, a government spokesman said.

A suicide bomber rammed a police checkpoint in northern Iraq with an explosives-laden vehicle today, killing more than a dozen people, the deadliest attack on a day when at least 25 people died in violence around the country.

Eight people died when a suicide car bomber hit an Iraqi army checkpoint today.

IRAQI Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki yesterday called for Shi’ites and Sunnis to use the Islamic holy month of Ramadan to put aside their differences, while authorities reported that at least 20 people were killed in violence across the country.

At least 20 people were killed and 41 injured today in scattered violence around Iraq, including a mortar attack on the Health Ministry followed by a car bombing targeting a police patrol.

Six people were killed and 25 injured today in scattered violence around Iraq, including a mortar attack on the Health Ministry and a car bombing targeting a police patrol in Baghdad.

TRIBES in one of Iraq’s most volatile provinces have joined together to fight the insurgency in their region, calling on the government and the US-led military coalition to give them weapons, a prominent tribal leader said.

A suicide car bomber killed 14 people and wounded 43 outside the Interior Ministry in downtown Baghdad today, police said, a day after an upsurge of violence left more than 50 people dead across the country.

Iraqi police today said they had arrested the suspected local leader of an insurgent group in the northern city of Mosul.

Two separate parked car bombs detonated today in Baghdad’s Sadr City and in western Baghdad to kill at least 10 people and wound 51, police said.