An investigation was underway today after a 42-year-old man was shot dead by police during a seven-hour armed siege at his village home.

The group which has claimed responsibility for the attacks in Madrid is believed to be affiliated to al-Qaida.

Thirty tourists watched in horror today as a New Zealand diver was struck and killed by a whale he was trying to free from a fishing line.

The suicide bombings in Morocco which killed 41 people came just five days after a Western compound was targeted by bombers in Saudi Arabia.

The British family caught in the Moscow hostage crisis has been finally reunited after their son was released from hospital overnight.

FBI agents are continuing to question an air passenger said to have tried to detonate explosives packed in his shoes.

The al-Qaida network could be planning a ‘‘Christmas spectacular’’ to hit back at the West after the Taliban’s humiliating defeat, defence experts warned today.

The US plane hijackers murdered stewardesses with knives to draw pilots from their cockpits, it emerged today as investigators began to piece together the full horror of the worst terror attack in history.

Concern that the US could ‘‘over-react’’ to the outrage was voiced by a British terrorism expert.