Fresh violence as Annan visits Iraq

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has made his first trip to Iraq since the US-led invasion. His surprise visit to Baghdad comes over two years after bombings at former United Nations offices in the capital killed 22 people.

The UN then withdrew its international staff from the country, although a small contingent later returned. As he met Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, Annan was given a stark reminder of the ongoing violence. A car bomb ripped through a market in Baghdad, killing at least four people, all said to be women. The UN Secretary-General had flown in from Jordan where 57 lives were lost in hotel bomb blasts that al-Qaeda in Iraq said it carried out.

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