The prisoner abuse scandal has so tarnished the US Army’s 800th Military Police Brigade that soldiers recommended for an Army Bronze Star medal have been dropped from the list, the brigade’s commander says.

AN Iranian opposition group under scrutiny in France planned to assassinate former members suspected of betraying the movement, according to a report by France’s counterintelligence agency.

Hundreds of French police raided the Paris offices of the Iranian opposition group the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran today.

THE top US official in Iraq went north yesterday, meeting with an American-installed city council in Mosul and surveying the challenges he faces in getting that ethnically volatile section of the country moving once again.

THE US military issued an ultimatum yesterday to an armed Iranian opposition group operating in Iraq, insisting that it lay down its arms or face attack.

Coalition troops were struggling to bring stability back to Iraq today as ethnic clashes and more looting broke out across the country.

The sudden expulsion of about 50 families from a strip of northern Iraq has triggered speculation that Saddam Hussein is preparing a buffer zone to defend against a US invasion.