13 gunmen died carrying out revenge attacks on Army checkpoints in north Iraq on Tuesday after dawn clashes between protesters and security forces left 27 people dead, top Army officers said.

A suicide bomber blew up a tanker truck at police headquarters in the Iraqi city of Tikrit Monday, killing seven people in the latest in a spike in unrest ahead of the first elections since 2010. Eleven people were also wounded in the 8:40 am (0540 GMT) bombing in the city, hometown of executed dictator Saddam Hussein and remains a focus for insurgents, the police and medics said.

Millions of Shiites flooded the Iraqi shrine city of Karbala on Sunday for the peak of Ashura rituals, which have been largely spared the deadly attacks that struck pilgrims in past years.

Throngs of

Hussein al-Kharsan kneels, bent over a giant sheet of paper, laboriously writing the words of Islam's holy book, the Quran, in beautiful Arabic script with a traditional wood and feather pen.

The 25-

A Kurdish rebel group said on Friday that Turkey's air force carried out air strikes on border areas of north Iraq, but gave no details about casualties or damage.

"On March 8, between 6:00 pm (1500

Inside palace walls built by Saddam Hussein, U.S. generals plotted the war's course, tracked the mounting death toll and swore in new American citizens under gaudy glass chandeliers.

Just outside the

The small cell concealed in a bombed-out villa is dusty now, has no electricity, and its door and toilet are gone, bound for a US museum. But it once held Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

There is no

Gunmen killed 22 passengers on a bus coming from Syria late Monday in a desert region west of Baghdad, police general Haider Rzayj told the media.

"Some armed men stopped the bus coming from Syria Mo

A car bomb and a roadside blast in the central Iraqi city of Kut killed at least 33 people and wounded 52 others, a doctor said, updating an earlier toll.

"We have so far received 33 dead bodies and

Attacks in more than a dozen cities across Iraq on Monday killed 66 people, including 40 in twin blasts in the southern city of Kut, in the country's bloodiest day this year.

The surge of violence ra