Four New York Times journalists, including a Briton, have been reported missing while covering the fighting in Libya.

Ten Marines were killed and 11 wounded by a roadside bomb near Fallujah, Iraq, in one of the deadliest attack on US troops in recent months, the Marine Corps announced today.

Wearing a disabled explosives belt and a white headscarf and wringing her hands as she spoke, the Iraqi woman calmly described how she tried and failed to join her husband in a suicide attack on a hotel wedding party.

President George Bush signed a $401bn (€341bn) defence authorisation bill today, saying members of the US armed forces are facing “a great and historic task” in confronting and defeating the forces of terrorism.