David Cameron has insisted Britain will refuse to pay ransoms to terrorists in return for the release of hostages, as Islamic State (IS) militants threaten a Briton’s life.

A wave of car bombs in Baghdad has killed 32 people and wounded dozens, the latest attacks in a months-long surge in violence.

A wave of bombings and shootings across eight Iraqi cities today, targeting police and Shiite pilgrims, killed 46 people.

A PATHOLOGIST has been unable to determine how a senior Tory whose body was found in a Glastonbury Festival VIP toilet died, an inquest heard yesterday.

A suicide bomber in the northern city of Tikrit and gunmen in the Iraqi capital killed a total of seven people today, officials said.

No Way Down: Life & Death on K2

The death toll from Iraq’s worst attacks in more than two years climbed to 155 today as as the funerals from the victims of twin suicide bombings in the heart of Baghdad began.

THE head of Shannon Development – whose main tasks include jobs promotion in Shannon Free Zone and tourism in the mid-west – said yesterday that the organisation should not be on Bord Snip’s radar as it was self-financing.

JOBS created by the country’s leading job creation agencies dropped significantly last year.

Photos of President Hosni Mubarak touring a remote industrial zone near his summer beach home were published today in Egypt’s main state-owned newspapers, as government media sought to dispel speculation about his health.

Few Iraqi MPs managed to attend a rare emergency legislative session today after a suicide bomber ripped through their cafeteria in a brazen attack inside Baghdad’s US-guarded Green Zone.

Iraq’s prime minister strolled Baghdad’s streets and visited police checkpoints today to showcase security ahead of an international conference aimed at stabilising the war-torn country.

Gunmen in military uniforms today kidnapped shopkeepers and bystanders from a major commercial area in Baghdad, while nearly 30 people were killed or found dead elsewhere in Iraq.

Security forces are closing in on the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, a senior official said today, showing a captured video of the terror chief teaching followers how to build a car bomb.

A bomb killed 19 people and wounded 58 in a Shiite district of Baghdad today as parliament prepared to inaugurate the country’s first fully constitutional government since the collapse of Saddam Hussein three years ago.

While the Christian Peacemakers Teams expressed joy at their colleagues’ sudden rescue from captivity in Iraq today, the peace activists took the opportunity to also call for an end to the US-led occupation of Iraq.

Iraqi police arrested eight Sunni Arabs for allegedly plotting to kill the judge who prepared the indictment of Saddam Hussein, the day before the ousted leader’s trial for crimes against humanity resumes.

AMERICAN and Iraqi troops launched a dawn assault yesterday on another town near the Syrian border and killed 50 insurgents, a US statement said, while the Interior Ministry reported that a car bomb detonated outside a gate leading into the fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad, killing two South Africans.

Nearly two years after his capture, Saddam Hussein is finally facing trial today for alleged crimes against fellow Iraqis.

A suicide car bomb killed a US soldier today at a checkpoint outside Baghdad’s highly fortified Green Zone, where Iraq’s parliament and the US Embassy are located.

At least one explosion was heard inside the heavily fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad today.

Four bombings, including three suicide attacks within seven minutes, killed at least nine people, including at least three Iraqi soldiers, in northern Iraq early today, while the government announced it has detained nearly 900 suspected militants in a two-week sweep in Baghdad.

An attack by a suicide car bomber near an American patrol in southern Baghdad killed two US soldiers and wounded four, an official said today.

One American was injured in a mortar attack today on a building housing offices of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, an embassy spokesman said.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell made an unannounced trip to Baghdad today following talks with Saudi officials on a proposal to form a Muslim force to help stamp out the deadly insurgency in Iraq.

Militants loyal to suspected al-Qaida terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi threatened to behead three Turkish hostages, fanning tensions as President George W Bush visited Turkey.

Northern Secretary Peter Mandelson has been called into 10 Downing Street by Tony Blair to "establish the facts" of his involvement with a passport application.