Two soldiers were injured when a US helicopter was forced down south of Baghdad, the military said in Iraq today.

An al-Qaida front group claims to have captured American soldiers in a deadly Iraq attack, as thousands of US troops searched insurgent areas south of Baghdad for their three missing comrades.

Six Sunni men who had received death threats for meeting local Shiites were killed today in execution-style killings, police said.

US and Iraqi troops captured 84 suspects and destroyed a bomb-making facility in a series of raids in Iraq, the US military said today.

At least 20 Iraqis were killed in clashes early today in Ramadi, where US ground troops and warplanes have conducted a series of operations over recent days targeting Sunni insurgents, police and medical workers said.

An al-Qaida-linked group posted a web video today purporting to show the bodies of two American soldiers being dragged behind a truck, then set on fire in apparent retaliation for the rape-slaying of a young Iraqi woman by US troops from the same unit.

Two near simultaneous explosions in north-eastern Baghdad today killed three people and wounded 16, a day after the defence ministry said security forces would expand a crackdown into the eastern parts of the capital, including Shiite militia strongholds.

A SUICIDE car bomber detonated explosives in a crowd of labourers gathered across the street from a major Shi’ite shrine in southern Iraq yesterday, killing at least 53 people and wounding 105.

A Jordanian who was responsible for slaughtering two US soldiers last month was fatally wounded in a clash with security forces, a senior Iraqi official said today.

Five US army soldiers are under investigation for allegedly raping a young woman, then burning her body after killing her and three members of her family, a US military official said today.

US forces today recovered the bodies of two American soldiers reported captured by insurgents last week.

A senior Iraqi military official today said the bodies of two missing US soldiers had been discovered on a street near the town where they went missing.

Two US soldiers missing in Iraq have been found dead, news reports said today.

The US military today said it had intensified its search for two missing soldiers, with more than 8,000 Iraqi and US troops combing the volatile area south of Baghdad where the men were attacked.

One US soldier was killed and two others were missing after they were attacked at a traffic checkpoint south of Baghdad, the US military said.

American forces killed more than 40 insurgents, and a known al-Qaida operative, in five raids south of Baghdad.

Insurgents shot down a US military helicopter during fighting south of Baghdad, killing two soldiers, the US command said in Iraq today.

The US military command in Iraq today released previously unseen footage from a video purportedly posted by al-Qaida in Iraq’s leader, showing him decked out in American trainers and unable to operate his machine gun.

US troops in Iraq killed 10 insurgents – three of them wearing suicide vests - in a raid today as American forces stepped up the hunt for terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

THE US government dispatched its top two foreign policy officials to Iraq yesterday in a dramatic show of support for the country’s emerging government.

Coalition forces backed by a helicopter and jets attacked a safe house being used by suspected foreign insurgents in Iraq, killing 12 militants and a woman, the US military said today.

THE speaker of parliament announced yesterday he was postponing a planned session of parliament “for a few days”.

Six people were killed during a raid before dawn today as American troops hunted down an al-Qaida suspect at a safehouse south of Baghdad, the US military said.

A militant group in Iraq that claimed it shot down a US Apache helicopter last weekend provided video footage showing that it said were parts of the wreckage, Al-Jazeera television reported today.

Four US Marines died in a pair of roadside bombings in western Iraq’s volatile Anbar province, the military said today. Another explosion killed two Iraqi civilians south of Baghdad.

Capping the bloodiest month for American troops since January, the US military reported that seven more US service members were killed – all victims of increasingly sophisticated bombs that have been become the deadliest weapon in the insurgents’ arsenal.

THE US military said six American soldiers were killed in two bombings yesterday, making October one of the deadliest months for US troops in Iraq this year.

IRAQI security forces launched a high-profile crackdown targeting terrorists in Baghdad yesterday as insurgents hit back with suicide bombings and ambushes that killed at least 17 people.

Iraqi security forces launched a high-profile crackdown targeting terrorists in Baghdad today as insurgents hit back with suicide bombings and ambushes that killed at least 17 people.

A car bomb exploded outside a Shiite mosque packed with worshippers celebrating a major Muslim holiday yesterday, and a suicide driver blew up an ambulance at the wedding of a Shiite couple south of the capital.

At least four people were killed and 16 injured when a suicide bomber detonated an ambulance at a Shiite wedding party in a village near Baghdad today.

Several hundred tons of conventional explosives are missing from a former Iraqi military facility that once played a key role in Saddam Hussein’s efforts to build a nuclear bomb, the UN nuclear watchdog said today.

Two bodies, one with a severed head, were found early today south of Baghdad, police said.