GUNSHOTS struck the Pentagon early yesterday but failed to penetrate the building, officials said, as police investigated the source of the gunfire.

OPERATIVES in Afghanistan and Pakistan who have worked for the US against the Taliban or al-Qaida may be at risk following the disclosure of thousands of once-secret US military documents, former and current officials said.

AN Ethiopian Airlines plane carrying 90 people caught fire and crashed into the sea minutes after taking off from Beirut early yesterday, setting off a frantic search as passenger seats, baby sandals and other debris washed ashore.

Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun, the Marine who disappeared under mysterious circumstances while on duty in Iraq, has insisted that he was captured by insurgents and that he is still a loyal Marine.

HELICOPTERS loaded with drinking water and medicine touched down yesterday in remote villages devastated by floods in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

AMERICAN and Canadian troops yesterday rushed to a town left completely submerged by flooding and where health officials feared 1,000 people could be dead in that town alone.

With dark clouds moving in and more rain predicted, US and Canadian troops raced against time today to reach a small town where up to 1,000 people were feared dead from floods that wiped out villages across Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

THE caskets of dozens of children lined Jimani’s streets after floods swept away villages and sent families into the darkness and mud in a frantic search for loved ones among the 500 dead and hundreds missing.

The death toll from flooding in the Dominican Republic and Haiti rose to at least 363 today as villagers desperately searched for loved ones feared swept away by the torrent of mud from swollen rivers.

A US marine taking part in war games was shot and killed yesterday

Two Kuwaitis shot at US Marines during war games on an island off the Gulf state today, killing one and wounding another in what the Kuwaiti government called a terrorist act. Fellow Marines shot dead the assailants.

Two gunmen killed a US marine and injured a second American during war games on a Kuwaiti island today.

A US military transport plane carrying 10 soldiers crashed on take-off in Afghanistan, killing three soldiers, military officials said today. The seven others on board escaped with minor injuries.

A US military transport plane with 10 people on board crashed in eastern Afghanistan tonight, a Defence Department spokesman said in Washington.

A US aircraft has crashed in Afghanistan, a Defence Department spokesman said in Washington tonight.

Advancing coalition forces today claimed control of the Shah-e-Kot valley in eastern Afghanistan, sweeping all but a few small groups of al-Qaida and Taliban fighters as allied troops worked their way through the warren of mountain caves.

The Northern Alliance says Taliban commanders have agreed to let their troops into Kunduz.

The United States and its allies were today moving to seal off potential escape routes - even at sea - for terror chief Osama bin Laden.

A US Air Force sergeant has been killed in an accident in the Arabian Peninsula, becoming the first American death in Operation Enduring Freedom.