Three parked car bombs exploded in central Baghdad today near a predominantly Shiite area packed with vendors, killing at least 38 people and wounding 84, officials said.

A rocket attack on a Shi’ite neighbourhood in southern Baghdad this afternoon killed 10 people and wounded another 19, police said.

Six bomb attacks in Baghdad killed at least 17 people and wounded more than 50 today, hours before a highly anticipated ceremony in which the US-led coalition was to hand over control of the country’s armed forces command to Iraqi authorities.

Three bomb attacks targeting police patrols in Baghdad left at least four people dead and more than 40 wounded this morning, police said.

A roadside bomb targeting municipal workers exploded in Baghdad today, killing five of them and wounding two.

Two Britons were killed and three injured today when gunmen attacked a bus carrying Muslim pilgrims south of Baghdad, police and hospital officials said.

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

A roadside bomb exploded near a US military convoy in Baghdad today, missing the soldiers but killing a seven-year-old boy who was selling cans of black-market petrol on the street and wounding nine other civilians.

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.

A suicide car bomber and a man wearing an explosive belt detonated themselves today near a police station in central Baghdad, wounding at least nine.

A suicide bomber wearing a vest laden with explosives blew himself up today inside a popular Baghdad kebab restaurant, killing at least eight people, police said.

An explosion has occurred near the main checkpoint to Baghdad International Airport today, the US military said.

A gas tanker truck wired with explosives blew up in a west Baghdad neighbourhood, killing one person, wounding 19 and lighting up the night sky with a fireball just hours after US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld left the Iraqi capital.

A car bomb exploded near a checkpoint leading to Baghdad’s Green Zone today, injuring at least 12 people.

Insurgents detonated a roadside bomb as a US military convoy passed in southern Baghdad early today, injuring six Iraqi civilians, police and hospital officials said.

At least three people were killed in an explosion near Yarmouk Hospital in western Baghdad, police and hospital officials said.

Multiple explosions rocked a Baghdad district as a US military convoy was passing today, killing at least 37 people and wounding more than 50.

US jets pounded a suspected safe house of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Fallujah today, the latest in a series of strikes against the man suspected of masterminding deadly attacks and beheadings in Iraq.

A roadside bomb detonated near a Baghdad hospital today, injuring a senior Iraqi Finance Ministry official and killing two of his guards, police said.

US troops captured a key lieutenant of Iraqi rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr during overnight clashes in Najaf that killed 24 people and wounded nearly 50.

A suicide bomber blew up his car outside an army recruiting centre in central Baghdad today killing around 47 people and injuring 50.