Lebanon’s deepening political crisis worsened today, with ministers in the anti-Syrian government fearing for their lives after an assassination of one of their own, businesses on strike and all sides ignoring calls for a negotiated resolution.

Two US soldiers that a previously unknown Iraqi group claimed it had captured are safe and were never missing, the Pentagon said today.

A previously unknown group claimed today to have captured two US soldiers in an attack on a military convoy west of Baghdad, according to a statement broadcast on Lebanese television.

Iraqi civilians have torn up and spat at portraits of Saddam Hussein in multiple acts against the Saddam regime in Baghdad today.