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The half-naked body of one of three missing United States soldiers was found on Wednesday in the Euphrates River in the town of Mussayab south of Baghdad, police said. Police spokesperson Captain Muthanna al-Maamouri said there were bullet wounds to the torso and head of the body.

Dozens of people were killed in Iraq on Thursday as security officials said bitter sectarian attacks had claimed the lives of nearly 2 000 civilians throughout the country in January. Meanwhile, a media watchdog group said that at least 65 media workers were killed and 20 kidnapped in the country in 2006, the most lethal year since the United States-led invasion in March 2003.

At least 17 people were killed on Sunday when a suicide bomber exploded his vehicle among day labourers waiting to be hired in the central Iraq city of Hilla, scene of some of the deadliest sectarian bomb attacks. Police in the mainly Shi’ite city 100km south of Baghdad said 49 people were wounded in the early morning blast.

A bomb exploded at the entrance of a Shi’ite Muslim mosque south of Baghdad on Wednesday as worshippers gathered for prayers ahead of the breaking of the fast on the first day of Ramadan, killing at least 13 people and wounding 40, police and hospital officials said.

A double suicide attack killed at least 25 people south of Baghdad on Monday as insurgents struck back against a massive operation by Iraq to try to restore security in the capital. ”We have 25 killed and 100 wounded,” said Hilla hospital director Mohammed Dhia, adding that all the casualties were former police commandos.

A car bombing on Monday near a medical centre in a town south of Baghdad killed 105 people in the single deadliest insurgent attack in Iraq in more than a year, hospital officials said. The blast ripped through a crowd of civil servants waiting outside a medical centre in Hilla, capital of Babil province, and left another 122 people wounded, they said.

United Nations Secretary General rejected criticism in Moscow on Monday that the UN is not doing enough to help restore order in Iraq, and offered the world body’s aid in helping the war-torn country work out a new Constitution. ”Many suggest that … the UN is not adequately represented in this country,” Annan wrote in a newspaper article.

At least 11 Iraqi civilians were killed on Wednesday morning when a pair of suicide bombers tried to attack a coalition base where international troops are based, a coalition spokesperson said. The attack outside Camp Charlie in Hillah left wounded 58 coalition troops, including Hungarians, Poles and an American.