The US military has filed murder charges against Omar Khadr, a Canadian who was a teenager when he was captured in Afghanistan and sent to the Guantanamo Bay prison in 2002.

THE appointment of an Iraqi general to head the brigade taking over from US forces besieging Fallujah was reduced to farce yesterday.

A 2,500-STRONG US force backed by tanks and artillery pushed to the outskirts of the Shi'ite city of Najaf last night for a showdown with radical Shi'ite cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr.