Taliban militants have staged a suicide car bombing and a gunfight with Afghan security forces outside the American consulate in the western city of Herat.

The US State Department says 18 of the 19 US embassies and consulates in the Middle East and Africa that have been closed due to a terrorist threat will reopen tomorrow or on Monday.

The US State Department is ordering non-emergency government personnel to leave the US Consulate in Lahore, Pakistan.

It’s not everyday you nearly upstage the most powerful man in the world.

Former CIA director David Petraeus was sneaked into the Capitol today, away from the media, to face lawmakers’ questions about the attack on the US Consulate in Libya – just one week after he resigned over an extramarital affair.

The White House was told that a militant group had claimed responsibility for the violence in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the US ambassador and three other Americans, two hours after the US consulate came under attack, it has emerged.

President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney were tied at 47% support each among likely voters ahead of their final live presidential debate in the early hours of this morning.

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney will tangle over foreign policy in their final presidential debate tonight, both candidates still looking for a breakout from a deadlocked White House campaign with just two weeks to run.

Barack Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney confront each other on foreign policy early tomorrow morning UK time in a third and final presidential debate, a must-win televised face-off heading into the final two weeks of the deadlocked campaign for the White House.

By John Riordan, New York

Mitt Romney said the attack on the US consulate in Libya is an issue in the presidential campaign because Americans wonder why it took the Obama administration so long to acknowledge it was a terrorist act.

In the first national poll to be conducted entirely after the opening US presidential debate, Mitt Romney now leads Barack Obama by four points.

Mitt Romney is hoping to change the trajectory of his campaign as he and president Barack Obama study for their first debate on Wednesday.

Pakistan yesterday distanced itself from a cabinet minister’s bounty for killing the maker of anti-Islam film Innocence of Muslims as protests against the movie continued from Turkey to Hong Kong.

Hundreds of Pakistanis protesting over an anti-Islam film broke through a barricade near the US consulate in Karachi, sparking clashes with police in which one demonstrator was killed and more than a dozen injured.

The US State Department today ordered the departure of all family members and non-essential US government personnel from its embassies in Sudan and Tunisia and warned US citizens against any travel to the two countries due to security concerns over rising anti-American violence.

Protests have started breaking out in parts of the Muslim world against an anti-Islam film which prompted violent protests at US embassies in the Middle East earlier this week.

Demonstrators yesterday attacked the US embassies in Yemen and Egypt in protest at a film they consider blasphemous to Islam, and US warships headed towards Libya after the US ambassador there was killed in related violence this week.

Chanting “death to America,” hundreds of protesters angered by an anti-Islam film stormed the US Embassy compound in Yemen’s capital and burned the American flag today, the latest in a series of attacks on American diplomatic missions in the Middle East.

President Barack Obama has called the presidents of Libya and Egypt and urged them to continue working with the US to ensure the safety of diplomatic personnel, the White House said.

US President Barack Obama has condemned the attack on the Benghazi consulate and a safe house refuge in which the US ambassador to Libya and three embassy staff were killed.

A film attacking the prophet Mohammed sparked assaults on US diplomatic missions during which an American was shot dead as protesters burned the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Attackers set off a bomb next to a wall of the US Consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi today, the US State Department said.

A CAR bomb hit the heart of Pakistan’s largest city yesterday, destroying a police investigation bureau and killing at least 10 people.

The sprawling remains of Hurricane Alex has drenched much of northern Mexico, paralysing the major city of Monterrey.

MEXICAN President Felipe Calderon headed to his country’s most violent city yesterday after deadly attacks on US consular staff and their families upped the ante in his battle against drug gangs.

LOVED ones of the 270 victims of the Lockerbie bombing yesterday began taking part in a series of events to mark the 20th anniversary of the atrocity.

A terrorist carrying detailed sketches of targets in last week’s Mumbai massacre was captured earlier this year, it emerged today.

Hundreds of troops were deployed on the streets in cities across Italy today as part of government measures to fight street crime.

Security forces backed by helicopter gunships killed 10 suspected insurgents today in a mountainous valley in north-western Pakistan, where the government is battling supporters of a militant pro-Taliban cleric, the military said.

Turkey’s head of state has protested a US congressional panel decision to approve a bill calling the First World War-era killings of Armenians a genocide, saying the decision came as a result of “petty domestic politics”.

China today said it was regrettable that some US media reports were quick to blame a Chinese student for the Virginia Tech massacre.

A PALESTINIAN man demanding medical expenses for a battle wound abducted three American women near the occupied West Bank city of Nablus yesterday, and freed them an hour later.

Three US women who were kidnapped in the West Bank today have been freed, say Palestinian security officials.

Militants in Nigeria are planning a major new wave of attacks and kidnappings in the next few days that could include up to 20 simultaneous bombings across the country’s oil-rich delta region, US diplomats warned today.

A SUICIDE attacker rammed a car packed with explosives into a vehicle carrying an American diplomat in Pakistan’s largest city, killing the diplomat and three other people before President George W Bush’s visit to Pakistan. Fifty-two people were wounded.

A mortar shell hit an hotel where the US consulate is based in Hillah, Iraq, but no casualties were immediately reported, police said.

A suicide car bomber attacked a US diplomatic convoy in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, killing four Americans and wounding two others, a US official said today.

The US Consulate in Lagos reopened today after a phoned-in terrorist threat prompted it to close down last week.

A suspected Islamic militant was killed and three others were arrested in clashes with police in the coastal Red Sea city of Jeddah, after Saudi security forces discovered a wanted militant hiding in a residential building, authorities said today.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas summoned militant leaders to ceasefire talks in the Gaza Strip today, with his political survival depending on agreement by the armed groups to halt attacks against Israel.

A MAN identified as Osama bin Laden has praised an attack earlier this month on a US consulate in Saudi Arabia and criticised the Saudi regime as weak and controlled by the United States.

Islamic militants threw explosives at the gate of the heavily-guarded US consulate in Jeddah in a bold assault, then forced their way into the building, prompting a gun battle that left seven people dead and several injured before the three-hour long crisis was brought under control.

An explosion was heard today in front of the US consulate in Jeddah (also known as Jiddah), witnesses said and there were reports that gunfire was heard before the blast.