Baghdad - The Iraqi military said on Wednesday said that Iraqi security forces had defused five explosive devices and had detained 31 people in Baghdad over the past 24 hours on suspicion of planning insurgent attacks.

In a statement, Baghdad's operations command said the detainees included many of Iraqi security's most-wanted "outlaws and miserable remnants of defeated terrorist groups."

Baghdad  - At least nine people were killed and 29 injured in two separate blasts in the northern Iraqi province of Mosul, police said Tuesday.

Seven people died when a man drove a truck laden with explosives towards a police station in the northern city of Mosul, police told dpa, the German news agency.

The explosion, which also left 25 people injured - including nine policemen, took place in the district of al-Mahata, south of Mosul.

Baghdad - The British military on Tuesday formally transferred control of its base in the southern Iraqi city of Basra to US forces in a military ceremony attended by Iraqi leaders.

The transfer follows Britain's agreement last year to withdraw all but 500 of the 4,100 troops it had stationed in Iraq ahead of its complete military withdrawal from the country in July.

The 500 remaining British soldiers will train Iraqi forces, the Iraqi navy in particular.

Baghdad - Two Iraqi soldiers were killed and four civilians were wounded in a blast in the northern city of Mosul, police said.

The bomb went off in the al-Akhaa district of eastern Mosul, police told the German Press Agency dpa.

It was the second blast in Mosul on Tuesday. Earlier, seven people were killed and 25 were injured when a man drove a truck laden with explosives toward a police station in al-Mahata district, south of Mosul.

Baghdad 

Baghdad  - Three people were killed and 15 others were injured by a bicycle bomb in Baquba, the capital of the ethnically divided Iraqi province of Diyala, police said Monday.

All the casualties were construction workers looking for day jobs, police in Baquba told the German Press Agency dpa on Monday.

Divided between concentrations of Kurds in the north, Shiite Muslims along its border with Iran, and Sunni Muslims in the south-west, Diyala has been the site of deadly clashes between rival militias and insurgent groups for years.