US House of Representatives leader Nancy Pelosi again enraged President Bush, challenging the White House on Middle East policy in a meeting with Syria’s leader and insisting “the road to Damascus is a road to peace”.

The United Nations has received pledges of 3,500 troops for an expanded peacekeeping force in Lebanon, but it is unclear whether the soldiers represent the right mix of countries and units that could deploy quickly.

Thousands of Lebanese today joined the stream of refugees returning to their homes in southern Lebanon, followed closely by relief workers hoping to keep up with their needs in an area where a month of fighting devastated buildings and knocked out electricity and other essential services.

Five US Marines died in a combat operation near the Syrian border in western Iraq today, the US. military reported. The troops from Regimental Combat Team 2, 2nd Marine Division, were killed in a fire fight in Obeidi, 185 miles west of Baghdad, a statement said.

Capping the bloodiest month for American troops since January, the US military reported that seven more US service members were killed – all victims of increasingly sophisticated bombs that have been become the deadliest weapon in the insurgents’ arsenal.

US forces launched airstrikes today in a town near the Syrian border in western Iraq, part of a three-day offensive against insurgents that has killed at least 36 militants since the fighting began, officials said.

A suicide bomb attack at a recruitment centre for the Iraqi army today killed at least six people and wounded 20.

The US military launched a major combat operation with 1,000 Marines and Iraqi soldiers today in north-western Iraq.

BOMBING and shooting attacks west of Baghdad killed six US troops and a suicide car bomber slammed into a truck carrying Iraqi policemen near the airport yesterday, killing at least eight and wounding 25 - the latest wave of violence aimed at derailing Iraq’s advancing political process.

Insurgents in western Iraq killed five US Marines and sliced the heads off three Iraqis, part of a group of 21 men whose bodies were found dumped in the desert near the Syrian border after being gagged and shot.

American fighter jets flattened a suspected insurgent safe house near the Syrian border, the US military said today, as hundreds of US troops searched remote desert villages house by house for followers of Iraq’s most wanted militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Lebanese officials said Syrian troops will begin pulling back toward the Syrian border today, as the leader of the Hezbollah militant group called for a demonstration in Beirut to counter weeks of anti-Syrian protests.

Syrian President Bashar Assad was expected to announce today the pull-back of his troops in Lebanon closer to the Syrian border, but US counterpart George W Bush has rejected anything but a full withdrawal as insufficient.

GEORGE W BUSH is scheduled to visit Ireland this weekend, despite widespread abhorrence in this country of his belligerent foreign policy and, more particularly, of the illegitimate and immoral occupation of Iraq.

US troops killed dozens of insurgents near the Syrian border with Iraq after an ambush that left five Marines dead.

TEN US soldiers and as many as 30 insurgents were killed in fierce clashes around Iraq over the weekend as Spain vowed to pull its troops out of the coalition "as soon as possible".

The US may soon begin transferring power back to the Iraqi people, but American peacekeeping troops will remain in Iraq for some time, President George Bush affirmed today.

US defence officials were today investigating whether a strike on three vehicles fleeing Iraq near the Syrian border killed former dictator Saddam Hussein or his sons.

Italy will seek the extradition of Abul Abbas, the Palestinian terror leader captured by US commandos in a raid near Baghdad last night, the justice minister said today.