Baghdad

Insurgents launched new attacks on Thursday against United States troops as the US was reported ready to make changes to its blueprint for handing over power to a new Iraqi government. Officials were awaiting an announcement by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on the feasibility of holding legislative elections before June 30.

A child was killed and two others were wounded on Monday when an explosion ripped through a primary school in a Shiite Muslim district of the Iraqi capital, a senior police officer said. The explosion shook the school in the Kadhamiyah neighborhood, but it was not clear what caused the blast.

Twin roadside bombings west of Baghdad killed three American soldiers and two Iraqis on Tuesday, and the United Nations chief said he is ready to send a team to Iraq to assess prospects for early elections — if the United States-led coalition can guarantee security.

A powerful car bomb ripped the main gate to the headquarters of the United States-led coalition in Iraq on Sunday morning, killing at least 23 and injuring at least 95 among the large number of people lined up for work inside the Baghdad compound. The car bomb was a suicide bombing, a coalition spokesperson confirmed.

The United States-led coalition will release 100 people from Iraqi prisons on Thursday, with hundreds more to be freed in coming weeks, the top US official in Iraq, Paul Bremer, announced in a policy address on Wednesday. Bremer also unveiled a programme of rewards for the capture of more wanted individuals.

Three or four loud explosions shook central Baghdad early on Thursday morning in the area around the United States-led coalition’s main headquarters in the capital, but there were no reported casualties, the US military said. AFP reporters had heard powerful blasts laced with a barrage of automatic gunfire.

A tanker truck exploded on Wednesday at a busy crossroads in the Iraqi capital killing 10 people and wounding 15. ”This was an act of terrorism because there was no [military] target here,” Baghdad police chief Hamid Sabah Fahed said.

In the aftermath of the momentous capture of Saddam Hussein, car bombings, shootings and death have remained a daily diet mixed with a new twist of street violence from angry supporters of the ousted president.

At least 15 people were either killed or injured when a car bomb went off outside a police station in western Baghdad on Monday, witnesses said. Witnesses at the scene, including medical workers evacuating the casualties, gave conflicting reports about the death toll, saying up to nine people may have died.

A United States helicopter made an emergency landing on Tuesday near the town of Fallujah west of Baghdad, apparently after being hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. A reporter said two helicopters were flying in formation near the city, about 60km west of the capital, when one was struck by a grenade fired from the ground.

A bomb targeting a United States convoy killed at least four Iraqis and one US soldier in a crowded Baghdad street on Friday, just as a large pro-US demonstration in the capital condemned growing ”terrorism” against Iraqis and American troops. Another 15 Iraqis, including two women and a child, were wounded in the blast.

About 1 000 Iraqis, mostly Shiite Muslims, demonstrated in central Baghdad on Friday to condemn terrorism and military strikes against Iraqis and the United States ”liberation” forces. Dozens of children aged five to 10 carrying flowers led the protest under white banners painted in red letters.

Rockets apparently fired from donkey carts slammed into Iraq’s Oil Ministry and two hotels used by United States workers and foreign journalists in downtown Baghdad on Friday morning, causing limited damage. At least one man was injured. One rocket hit the Palestine hotel and another hit the next-door Sheraton.

An explosion on Tuesday on a road frequently used by British troops killed six civilians in the southern city of Basra in Iraq, hospital officials said, and the top United States commander in Iraq said the military had detained about 20 people suspected of links to al-Qaeda.

A series of bomb blasts in the Iraqi capital on Monday killed 26 civilians and eight policemen and wounded 224, interim Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Ibrahim said. All five bombings across the Iraqi capital, including that at the headquarters of the International Committee for the Red Cross, were suicide attacks.

A suicide bomber drove an ambulance packed with explosives into security barriers outside the international Red Cross building on Monday, and an American general said about 10 people were killed in the blast. The bombing came a day after insurgents attacked a Baghdad hotel, killing a US colonel.

The hotel in Baghdad where United States Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz was staying was hit on Sunday morning by explosive projectiles in an attack that wounded at least three people. Details were sketchy, but Wolfowitz, who was staying at the Al Rasheed hotel, was said not to have been injured.

A suicide car bomber hit a police station in northeast Baghdad on Thursday morning, killing 10 people, including two people in the car and three policemen, and injuring 28. After the blast occurred, an Iraqi policeman and a television news crew were attacked by the crowds that had gathered at the scene.

US soldiers faced more attacks in Iraq on Monday amid growing indications that Washington was ill-prepared to manage the occupation of the country in the wake of its military victory over Saddam Hussein.

A bomb at a hotel in central Baghdad housing staff of the United States television network NBC has killed a maintenance worker in what police called the first such attack aimed at foreign journalists in the city. Witnesses said two other people, including an NBC sound man, were wounded by the explosive device.

A bomb has hit a bus in Baghdad, killing an Iraqi and wounding 21 others, while the United States-installed government moved to assert itself with a tough new set of guidelines for media covering the occupied country. The blast occurred shortly after a US patrol passed through the area.

A car bomb exploded on Monday at a road checkpoint behind the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, killing at least two people and injuring 19. The blast took place two days before United States President George Bush is expected to address the UN and offer an expanded role in rebuilding Iraq.

Three United States soldiers were killed and two wounded late on Thursday in an ambush near the hometown of Saddam Hussein, the latest attack since the release of a new purported message of defiance by the ousted leader. The troops came under fire near the town of Tikrit, which is still a bastion of support for Saddam.

United States President George Bush was set on Sunday to announce a shift on Iraq policy calling in greater United Nations help as his defence secretary admitted the failure to wipe out Saddam loyalists may have sparked the security nightmare.

A car bomb exploded in the western Baghdad district of Rasafa on Tuesday, causing an unknown number of casualties. The attack occurred right next to Baghdad’s main police academy and across the street from Baghdad’s police headquarters and the Interior Ministry.

The FBI is to investigate links between the bomb massacre in the Iraqi city of Najaf and the deadly attacks on the United Nations’ Baghdad headquarters and Jordan’s embassy.

Iraqi authorities in Najaf were searching for cars said to be loaded with explosives on Sunday as tens of thousands marched through Baghdad in a funeral procession for the Muslim Shiite leader killed in a bomb massacre in the city.

Investigators on Friday were questioning Iraqi employees and guards who worked at the United Nations headquarters — many with ties to Saddam Hussein’s security service — on the growing suspicion that the deadly truck bombing of the UN facility in Baghdad may have been an inside job