THE former wife of the groom at a Kuwait wedding where a raging fire killed 43 women and children has confessed to starting the blaze as an act of revenge, local newspapers reported yesterday.

Saddam Hussein is living like a king in US military custody, an adviser to the Iraqi interim prime minister claims.

Gunmen stormed the compound of a Saudi company in a fashionable Baghdad neighbourhood, seizing an American, a Nepalese and four Iraqis after a gun battle in which a guard and one of the attackers were killed.