Mr Allawi indicated he opposed such reinforcements, saying the job should be done by the Iraqi forces now being trained.Campaigning in Ohio, Mr Kerry accused Mr Bush of lying about the true state of Iraq “America needs leadership that tells the truth,” he said. It was “a disgrace” that the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, had not come clean about what was happening ­ and a disgrace that the President did not hold anyone responsible.The President had failed to provide security for Iraq, Mr Kerry said, citing the recent CIA assessment that the country could be on the brink of civil war. The assumption here is that as soon as the US elections are out of the way, a second Bush administration would launch a major offensive against insurgent strongholds in Iraq to clear the path for elections there.. Three Israeli soldiers and three Palestinian gunmen were killed yesterday in battles near the Gaza Strip settlement of Morag. The clash came a day after a woman suicide bomber killed two Israeli border police guards at a Jerusalem bus stop. In an intensive exchange of fire, an Israeli captain and two sergeants were shot dead and a fourth soldier was critically wounded.Other troops rushed out and killed two of the gunmen, who were armed with AK-47 assault rifles and grenades.

They hunted down and killed a third, who was hiding among settlement greenhouses Soldiers later found an unexploded bomb. A Palestinian sniper wounded Itzik Saban, one of a party of Israeli reporters touring the site.The Morag raid was mounted jointly by three militant groups associated with Fatah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas. The official Palestinian Authority website celebrated it as a “courageous guerrilla operation”.Elsewhere in the Gaza Strip, an Israeli helicopter fired a missile into the Khan Yunis refugee camp, wounding 12 Palestinians, including a 13-year-old boy. An 11-year-old girl died in hospital yesterday after being shot in the head by an Israeli sniper on 7 September.Palestinian witnesses reported that about 20 military vehicles invaded the refugee camp yesterday after militants fired a mortar shell at the neighbouring settlement of Neve Dekalim.

Israeli army bulldozers then demolished five houses and partly demolished seven homes.. Two Egyptian men working for a mobile phone company have been kidnapped from their Baghdad office, the interior ministry said today. He had no further details.The men’s employers at Iraquna had no immediate information on the incident.. Thousands of leaflets carrying a personal appeal for help from the family of British hostage Ken Bigley have been distributed in Baghdad. We are appealing for your help.”We are waiting for him to come home. But that doesn’t take away from the human suffering that we’re seeing in that family.”Blair has to be very careful, very cautious Any word out of place could be misinterpreted.”.

Talk show television Oprah Winfrey-style has arrived in India with a vengeance. A sick, eight-months pregnant woman was cajoled in front of the cameras and forced to endure a seven-hour ordeal of public humiliation, as the studio audience combed every facet of the terrible dilemma she is facing with ill-restrained glee. Through no fault of her own, she faces an impossible choice between the husband she thought was dead, and the new husband whose child she is carrying. Her first husband went missing on active duty in the Indian army five years ago, and was presumed dead. After waiting years for him, Gudiya remarried.It transpires that the missing husband was a prisoner-of-war in Pakistan He has been released and wants her back.