This week will offer the US Congress its best chance to obtain answers about president Barack Obama’s new counter-terror strategy in the Middle East.

American and Iraqi troops, backed by warplanes and artillery, were today squeezing Sunni fighters into a smaller and smaller corner in Fallujah where about 600 rebels have been killed in the offensive.

The United States will seek to remove Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein even if he lets UN weapons inspectors resume their work, a US official has said.