President Barack Obama, confronting an inherited and faltering war, plans to dispatch thousands more military and civilian trainers to Afghanistan by the autumn on top of the 17,000 combat troops he has already ordered, senior administration officials said.

Dozens of Shiite villagers in northern Iraq were massacred by Sunni extremists, officials said today, while car bombs killed at least a dozen people in Baghdad.

Roadside bombs killed eight American soldiers in separate attacks today in Diyala province and Baghdad, and a car bomb claimed 30 more lives in a wholesale food market in a part of the Iraqi capital where sectarian tensions are on the rise.

AN 84-year-old World War II veteran has won a €195 million lottery jackpot.

The incoming commander of US troops in Afghanistan said today he expects Taliban militants to launch more suicide attacks this year than in 2006, when militants set off a record 139 suicide bombs.

The US military is planning to move a brigade of troops into Kuwait in what could be the first step of a short-term surge of American forces into Iraq to stabilise the violence.

A suicide bomber rammed a police checkpoint in northern Iraq with an explosives-laden vehicle today, killing more than a dozen people, the deadliest attack on a day when at least 25 people died in violence around the country.

Michael Brown, who lost his job as director of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) because of Hurricane Katrina, today said his biggest regret a year later was that he was not candid enough about the lack of a coherent federal response plan.

US President George Bush, spending his Independence Day holiday with American fighting forces, said US troops will overcome persistent violence in Iraq and a rekindled insurgency in Afghanistan because the enemy is vulnerable.

Alarming predictions of as many as 10,000 dead in New Orleans may have been greatly exaggerated, with authorities saying that the first street-by-street sweep of the swamped city revealed far fewer corpses than feared.

AUTHORITIES yesterday said their first systematic sweep of New Orleans found far fewer bodies than expected, suggesting that Hurricane Katrina's death toll may not be the catastrophic 10,000 feared.

The radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr (pictured) today called on his followers to end clashes with Shiite rivals so stalled talks on a new constitution can proceed.

US President George Bush is using the first anniversary of Iraq’s sovereignty to try to ease Americans’ doubts about the mission and outline a winning strategy for a violent conflict that has cost the lives of more than 1,740 US troops and has no end in sight.

US forces closed off the turbulent city of Fallujah today ahead of a major operation against insurgents following the horrific murders of four American civilian security men last week.

One Iraqi was killed and six others were injured when US soldiers opened fire after being attacked in two separate incidents today.

A roadside bomb exploded west of Baghdad today, killing two American soldiers, the US military command said.

A HUGE explosion destroyed the offices of a major Shi’ite party yesterday as it was revealed that US administrator Paul Bremer escaped a rebel ambush on his convoy two weeks ago.

In the third suicide attack this week against US troops, a car bomb exploded at the entrance of a base in western Iraq.

A US helicopter made an emergency lading near the Iraqi town of Fallujah today, apparently after being hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.

US President George W Bush made a surprise visit to American troops in Baghdad last night, flying secretly to violence-scarred Iraq to thank American forces for serving there.

IRAQI rebels combined hi-tech with low-tech yesterday when using donkey carts as launchers in a missile attack on the oil ministry and two Baghdad hotels.

More than a dozen rockets fired from donkey carts slammed into Iraq’s Oil Ministry and two hotels today – in brazen coordinated strikes at Baghdad’s most heavily protected civilian sites.

A US jet dropped a 500-pound bomb on insurgent forces after attacks in the Fallujah area, one of which resulted in three 82nd Airborne Division soldiers being wounded, the military said today.

Insurgents killed two US paratroopers and wounded another west of Baghdad today as the US military cracked down on residents of Saddam Hussein’s home town of Tikrit after guerrillas apparently shot down a Black Hawk helicopter there.

US forces in the northern city of Mosul came under attack yesterday as insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades at a military compound and a grenade exploded near a military convoy in the city centre.

Thirteen soldiers were killed and more than 20 were injured when their US Chinook helicopter was shot down in a missile attack in Iraq today, US officials said.

Coalition troops and Iraqi police arrested 32 people in raids in the holy city of Karbala, where rival factions of Iraq’s resurgent Shiite Muslims are vying over mosques and political power.

A US soldier was killed and five others were wounded when an army foot patrol was ambushed just outside Fallujah in Iraq today.

ROADSIDE bombings in central Iraq killed three US soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter and wounded six other service members, the US military said yesterday.

Three American soldiers and their Iraqi interpreter were killed and three other soldiers were wounded in a pair of roadside bombings in central Iraq.

AN American soldier was killed and three wounded yesterday in separate roadside bombings which prompted a fierce eight-hour firefight where US attack aircraft, tanks and helicopters battled Iraqi resistance fighters.

US troops fired on two cars at a checkpoint in Fallujah, killing four Iraqis and injuring five others, residents and Arab satellite television reported today.

American forces carried out a combined air and ground attack, killing three people and wounding three others, Iraqi police said in Fallujah today.

AMERICAN soldiers who mistakenly killed eight Iraqi policemen and a Jordanian guard this month had been in the turbulent city for only one day and were in the midst of a handover from one military unit to another.

British forces were patrolling at petrol stations in the southern Iraqi city of Basra today after a series of clashes with residents angry about increased fuel prices and power cuts.

ASSAILANTS fired rocket-propelled grenades at a checkpoint in Baghdad’s southwestern suburbs, killing one US paratrooper and wounding another, a military statement said yesterday.

US troops opened fire on anti-American demonstrators for the second time this week as Iraqis marched yesterday to protest the previous shooting. The city’s mayor said two people were killed and 14 wounded in the clash.

Throngs of Shiite Muslims marched through Baghdad’s streets today in a prelude to the annual pilgrimage to Shiite holy cities in southern Iraq next week.

American troops moved to capture Baghdad’s Saddam International Airport as the Iraqi capital came under renewed bombing. Coalition forces occupied around 75% of the sprawling site and initial reports said they met little opposition from Iraqi forces.

Key developments in the war against Iraq.

Fierce bombardment of Baghdad saw a series of major explosions reverberate through the city today, igniting an inferno in the Iraqi ministry of information.

Militants are still hiding on a south east Afghan mountain range despite a careful cave-clearing operation by US forces, according to American troops who have spent days trying to capture enemy forces.

A US soldier was wounded in eastern Afghanistan in a gun battle near the border with Pakistan, the US military said today.

An American soldier was seriously wounded in southern Afghanistan from a gunshot wound to the head, but it was not due to hostile fire, the US military said today.