A suicide car bomber struck a mostly Shiite neighbourhood today in central Baghdad, killing 26 people, hours after the prime minister promised the coming US-Iraq security sweep in the capital would pursue militants wherever they were hiding.

The Iraqi foreign minister today said the five Iranians detained by US-led forces in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq were working in a liaison office that had government approval and was in the process of being approved as a consulate.

The US Embassy in Baghdad today said it was investigating reports that an American had been kidnapped in southern Iraq.

Saddam Hussein’s chief lawyer today implored world leaders to prevent the United States from handing over the ousted leader to Iraqi authorities for execution, saying the former dictator should enjoy protect from his enemies as a “prisoner of war".

A suicide attacker blew up explosives strapped to his body in a central Afghan town today during a visit by the US ambassador, and 10 Afghan civilians were believed to be killed or wounded.

Afghan intelligence agents have scuttled a plot to assassinate outspoken US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, swooping down on a station wagon carrying three Pakistanis armed with Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, officials said today.

Osama bin Laden remains Public Enemy No. 1 but recent developments raise questions about the ability of US forces to track down the elusive terrorist and the resources dedicated to the hunt more than three years after the September 11 attacks.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il told a visiting Chinese envoy that his government would return to six-party nuclear disarmament talks if the United States showed sincerity and certain conditions were met, the North’s official news agency reported today.

Anti-Israel demonstrations erupted across the Arab world today after Israel assassinated Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas, with a missile attack outside a Gaza City mosque.

Arabs universally condemned the assassination of the Palestinian militant leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin, vowing revenge on Israelis.

The UN nuclear watchdog today deplored North Korea’s decision to remove seals and surveillance cameras from nuclear facilities that Washington says could yield weapons within months.

NORTH KOREA, defying world opinion, said yesterday that it had begun removing UN monitoring equipment from a nuclear reactor at the centre of the communist state’s suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons.