The remains of 222 people, probably Kurds killed under Iraq's former regime in 1987, were extracted from a mass grave south of Baghdad, the authorities said on Sunday.

"We have found 222 bodies and w

A suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into a police station in Hilla, south of Baghdad, killing 21 policemen on Thursday, the chief of the city's hospital said.

The attack also wounded

A suicide bomber blew up a vehicle packed with explosives near a police station south of Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 13 policemen in the country's deadliest attack in more than a month.

US defence secretary Robert Gates said on Friday that American forces were prepared to stay in any role beyond a scheduled pullout late in 2011, but time was running out for Iraq to ask.

A car bomb ripped through a crowd outside a hospital in Iraq's restive northern city of Kirkuk on Wednesday, killing at least one person and wounding 22, with a woman and baby among casualties, the police and a doctor said.

An attack on Iraq's biggest oil refinery early on Saturday left two engineers dead and one of its refining units badly damaged, prompting the facility to shut down, a senior official said.

A suicide bomber blew himself up among a crowd of police recruits in the Iraqi city of Tikrit on Tuesday, killing at least 39 people and wounding 72 others, security officials said.