Baghdad  - A 13-year-old Iraqi girl has managed to escape the terrorist kidnappers who planned to use her as a suicide attacker, the US Army reported Wednesday.

Baghdad - The Iraqi Supreme Criminal Court on Tuesday sentenced Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known as Chemical Ali, to death for the brutal crushing of the a Shiite uprising that followed the expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

Al-Majid, a cousin of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, served as Iraq's intelligence chief and defence minister at the time.

This was the second death sentence on al-Majid following one in June for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his part in the 1988 Anfal campaign, which killed 180,000 Kurdish civilians and guerrillas.

Baghdad - A dou

Baghdad - A policeman was killed and four were injured on Monday when a bomb targeted a police patrol in Mosul, 400 kilometres north of Baghdad, a security source said.

The blast took place in Akedat neighbourhood in the capital of Nineveh province, the source told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Separately, an Iraqi official in charge of the tribal police force affairs in the Iraqi cabinet survived an assassination attempt on Monday when a bomb went off near his motorcade in northern Baghdad, a senior security official said.

Baghdad - An attack on headquarters of the United Nations mission in Iraq in Baghdad's fortified central area known as the Green Zone on Saturday left two dead and 15 injured, a mission spokesperson told Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency.

The UN presence in Iraq has been limited since the organization's Baghdad headquarters was bombed in August 2003, killing 22 people, including the UN envoy in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

The Green Zone, Baghdad's diplomatic and government quarter, has been a frequent target of militants in Iraq.

On Monday, a female bomber detonated herself at a Green Zone entrance used by high-ranking officials and staff from the Iraqi parliament.

Baghdad  - A suicide bomber blew himself up in a mosque in Iraq on Friday, killing 12 people and injuring 16, security sources were quoted as saying in media reports.

The attack occurred in a Shiite mosque in al-Musayab district in Babel, 100 kilometres south of the capital Baghdad

The Aswat al-Iraq news agency reported that the suicide bomber was an Afghan national. The agency quoted an unnamed source.

The explosion came a day after Iraq's parliament approved the controversial security agreement with the United States that sets the timetable for the withdrawal of US forces from the country.