Iraq's parliament today voted to extend the country's state of emergency for 30 more days.
In Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, parliament voted unanimously to extend the emergency measures, which have been renewed every month since they were first authorised in November 2004.
It allows for a night-time curfew and gives the government extra powers to make arrests without warrants and undertake police and military operations. The measures are implemented in all areas of the country apart from the autonomous Kurdish region in the north.
The move came as suspected Sunni-Arab insurgents set off bombs in three different areas of the country that killed eight Iraqis and wounded 40.
Elsewhere, US forces investigating the crash of an air force jet in Iraq said that insurgents reached the site before US forces could and the pilot remains missing.
PA