At least 16 Iraqis were killed in an upsurge of violence on Sunday, including five who died in a blast on Baghdad's Palestine Street that targeted a passing police patrol, Iraqi security officials said. The roadside bombing in the east of the capital missed the police patrol but killed the bystanders and wounded four others, a defence ministry source said.

Saddam Hussein's troops drove truckloads of terrified Kurdish villagers into the desert and gunned them down by the hundreds, a witness told the ousted Iraqi leader's genocide trial on Wednesday. After managing to escape, the detainee ran off through the night and fell into a ditch of the recently killed, in the middle of a vast field of burial mounds left behind by a systematic slaughter, he told the court.

After a grisly series of civilian deaths from bombings in downtown Samarra, Hekmat Mumtaz, leader of the Al Bu Baz tribe, met local al-Qaeda commander Abu Abdullah and asked him to halt operations inside population centres. Mumtaz had himself been released only a month earlier after spending a year in United States detention facilities.

Ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein lashed out at the United States as his trial resumed on Thursday, branding the country "liars" for dismissing charges he was tortured by his American jailers. Prosecution witnesses, testifying anonymously front behind a blue screen, told of torture under Saddam's regime.

In Tunisia, the transition from dictatorship to democracy has been smoother than neighbouring countries, but an unexpected threat has emerged.

At least 16 Iraqis were killed in an upsurge of violence on Sunday, including five who died in a blast on Baghdad's Palestine Street that targeted a passing police patrol, Iraqi security officials said. The roadside bombing in the east of the capital missed the police patrol but killed the bystanders and wounded four others, a defence ministry source said.

Saddam Hussein's troops drove truckloads of terrified Kurdish villagers into the desert and gunned them down by the hundreds, a witness told the ousted Iraqi leader's genocide trial on Wednesday. After managing to escape, the detainee ran off through the night and fell into a ditch of the recently killed, in the middle of a vast field of burial mounds left behind by a systematic slaughter, he told the court.

After a grisly series of civilian deaths from bombings in downtown Samarra, Hekmat Mumtaz, leader of the Al Bu Baz tribe, met local al-Qaeda commander Abu Abdullah and asked him to halt operations inside population centres. Mumtaz had himself been released only a month earlier after spending a year in United States detention facilities.