BAGHDAD, Oct 5, 2007 (AFP) - At least 17 Iraqis including women and children were killed in a US air raid near the city of Baquba on Friday, Iraqi officials and witnesses said.

'Seventeen people were killed, 27 were wounded and eight are missing including women and children,' a defence ministry official told AFP.

US helicopters attacked the village of Al-Jaysani, near the mainly Shiite town of Al-Khalis, around 2 am (2300 GMT), destroying at least four houses and killing up to 25 people, witnesses said.

BAQUBA, Iraq, Sept 25, 2007 (AFP) - At least 28 people were killed and 34 wounded in a devastating attack by a suicide bomber inside a mosque near Iraq's restive city of Baquba, police and a medical official said on Tuesday.

The attack Monday evening targetted a reconciliation meeting between two feared militias at Shifta village west of Baquba during the evening meal that breaks the daytime fast observed by Muslims during Ramadan.

BAQUBA, Iraq, Sept 24, 2007 (AFP) - A suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest amid a crowd of people inside a mosque near Iraq's restive city of Baquba late on Monday, killing at least nine people, officials said.

Among the dead are seven policemen, three of them top-ranking officers, police Brigadier Khaider al-Timimi told AFP, adding another 15 people were wounded.

BAQUBA, Iraq, Sept 24, 2007 (AFP) - A suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest inside a mosque amid a crowd of people near Iraq's restive city of Baquba late on Monday, killing or wounding at least 20 people, officials said.

The attack occurred amid a gathering of dignitaries who had assembled in the mosque at Shifta village west of Baquba for the evening meal that breaks the daytime fast observed by Muslims during Ramadan, a security official said.

BAQUBA, Iraq, Sept 3, 2007 (AFP) - Al-Al Qaeda-linked gunmen ambushed a minibus near the restive Iraqi city of Baquba on Monday and kidnapped 11 passengers, police said.

The bus was heading from Baghdad to Baquba, the capital of the province of Diyala, when it was stopped in an area called Al-Hashmiyat, a known stronghold of Al-Al Qaeda in Iraq, Lieutenant Colonel Najim al-Sumaidaie told AFP.

'The gunmen are linked to Al-Al Qaeda and they kidnapped all 11 passengers from the bus,' he said.

BAQUBA, Iraq, Aug 23, 2007 (AFP) - Suspected Al-Al Qaeda militants launched a dawn raid on a mosque and homes of Sunni sheikhs in the town of Kanan northeast of Baghdad on Thursday, killing 12 people and abducting 12 others, police said.

'The first attack was against a mosque,' Baquba police chief Brigadier General Ali Dilayan told AFP. 'They blew up the mosque, then they bombed houses crowded with family members.'

Three houses were attacked, including those of two sheikhs known to back the police and US-led forces in their fight against Al-Al Qaeda in Iraq, he said.