At least 48 people were killed in Iraq today, as a rash of bombings, including one in which a soldier may have blown himself up with nearly 30 other troops, proved insurgents remain a deadly force.
At Khalis, 60 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, a suicide bomber wearing Iraqi army uniform killed at least 26 people and wounded 29 at an army mess, police and military sources said.
Six soldiers were still listed as missing. Wounded men told reporters they believed the bomber was a member of their unit - not the first time such an attack has been mounted.
In the same town, on the main road north to the oil city of Kirkuk, two senior anti-terrorist police officers from Kirkuk were killed by gunmen who opened fire on their car, local police said. Last week, the Kurdish head of their department was killed with another officer in Kirkuk.
Potentially wealthy Kirkuk is a focus of ethnic tensions among Kurds, Turkish-speaking Turkmen and Sunni Arabs, the minority which dominated Iraq under Saddam and which accounts for much of the revolt against the new Shi'ite and Kurdish-led government formed after a general election in January.
Arab politicians in the city accused Kirkuk police and Kurdish security forces of detaining 250 Arabs and dozens of Turkmen in the Kurdish region to the north of the city.
Kirkuk's Kurdish police chief denied any arrests on ethnic grounds. But the US embassy in Baghdad, reacting to a report in the Washington Post suggesting US forces were aware of irregular detentions, said it was concerned about the issue.
In southern Baghdad, a car bomb exploded near a police patrol, killing at least 10 people and wounding 29, police said. The blast blew a crater in the road and destroyed half a dozen cars, including several police vehicles. Police officers said policemen and civilians were among the dead and wounded.
Two mortar rounds landed on houses in the southwest of the capital, killing five people, police said.
In Tal Afar, a volatile town near the northern city of Mosul, five civilians and two police officers were killed when at least 15 mortar rounds rained down on a police base in an old fort and neighbouring houses, police said.
Fifteen people, including a policeman, were wounded, medical staff said.
Around 1,000 people have been killed in insurgent violence since the government was formed in late April.
The news also emerged today of the successful rescue of Australian hostage Douglas Wood who was freed by Iraqi and US forces after six weeks in captivity.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard confirmed the rescue saying: "Mr Wood was recovered a short while ago in Baghdad in a military operation which I'm told was conducted by Iraqi forces, in cooperation in a general way with force elements from the United States."
Mr Howard told parliament in Canberra the 63-year-old engineer who lives in California with his American wife was now safe and well under the protection of Australian troops in Baghdad.
Australian diplomats and US military officials in the Iraqi capital declined comment. An Iraqi Defence Ministry official said details would be released shortly.
It was not clear if the operation was intended to free the hostage or whether he was found by chance in a raid on suspected insurgents. Howard denied any ransom had been paid.