IRAQ’S multinational peacekeeping force scrambled to regroup yesterday after Spain’s announcement that it would pull out its 1,300 troops, with Albania pledging more soldiers but US officials bracing themselves for more withdrawals.

Spain’s withdrawal of its troops from Iraq should not harm long-term relations with the United States, Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos said today, adding that the country would honour its international commitments and remain steadfast in the fight against terrorism.

The new Spanish Socialist prime minister today abruptly ordered his troops home from Iraq.

Iraqi fighters tonight paraded a 20-year-old captured American soldier on video.

Kidnappers are holding an American soldier hostage in Iraq, it was reported tonight.

An American businessman has been abducted from his hotel in the British controlled Iraqi city of Basra by kidnappers disguised as policemen.

Two Americans working for the US-led Coalition have been shot dead along with their Iraqi translator after their car was stopped at a makeshift checkpoint by men dressed as policemen in south-central Iraq.

Roadside bombs killed two US soldiers and two Iraqi children, as the toll from a coordinated guerrilla onslaught on Iraq’s holy Shiite city of Karbala rose to 19 dead.

The US has handed military control over a huge swathe of Iraq to a Polish commander during a ceremony in the ruins of an amphitheatre built by Alexander the Great near Babylon.

SADDAM HUSSEIN launched his first major offensive out of Baghdad last night, dispatching his elite Republican Guards to confront American troops in central Iraq.