Salam Faraj

A series of more than 25 attacks across Iraq have killed 56 people and wounded over 250 others with security forces and markets among the targets.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called on lawmakers to withdraw confidence from one of his deputies as the country's political crisis deepened.

Gunmen shot dead two Iraqi families, mostly children, and beheaded some of the 11 victims on Monday.

At least 36 people were killed and 71 wounded in three apparently coordinated minibus-borne bombings that targeted hotels in Baghdad on Monday.

Baghdad's governor called on Tuesday for the Iraqi interior minister to be fired over twin bombings claimed by al-Qaeda.

Muntazer al-Zaidi, the reporter jailed for throwing his shoes at former US president George Bush, is expected to become a free man on Tuesday.

A string of powerful bomb attacks targetting Shi'ite Muslim worshippers in Baghdad on Friday killed 27 people, security officials said.

All foreign troops except for US forces will be out of Iraq by the end of July, said the head of the Iraqi Parliament's foreign affairs committee.

More than 900 people have been killed in clashes between militiamen and security forces in Baghdad's Sadr City, which broke out last month, a senior Iraqi official told reporters on Wednesday. ''There were 925 martyrs in Sadr City and 2 605 others have been wounded'', said Tehseen Sheikhly, a spokesperson for the government's Baghdad security plan.

The number of Iraqis killed in March climbed to 1 082, mostly civilians, the highest monthly figure since August, amid a spike in violence driven by clashes between Shi'ite militiamen and security forces, officials said on Tuesday. The figure confirms a reversal of the trend of gradually decreasing violence since June.

Followers of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr staged noisy protests on Thursday against a crackdown on Shi'ite fighters in Basra as the southern oil hub was rocked by a third straight day of fighting. Demonstrations were held in Sadr City and Kadhimiyah, two Baghdad bastions of Sadr's Mehdi Army militia.

A wave of attacks across Iraq on Sunday killed 51 people, while insurgents fired a barrage of mortars at Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, sending United States embassy staff scurrying into bunkers. The deadliest attack was in the city of Mosul where a suicide bomber crashed an explosives-laden truck into an Iraqi army base.