IRAQ: A car bomb attack on a US patrol outside the rebel-held city of Falluja yesterday killed seven American marines and three Iraqi National Guardsmen, in the deadliest single attack on US forces in five months.
The attack raises the official Pentagon US death toll for the Iraq war to at least 988, including three civilian Department of Defence employees.
In another blow to Iraq's US-backed government, officials retracted a claim to have captured the most wanted Saddam Hussein aide still on the run in Iraq.
A day after several Iraqi officials reported the capture of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, who was sixth on a US list of the 55 most wanted members of Saddam's regime and had a $10 million price on his head, the government had to make an embarrassing climbdown and say he had not been caught after all. "The person that has been arrested, after appropriate medical tests, was not al-Douri but somebody related to him," the Interior Ministry said.
Meanwhile, an Internet statement purportedly from a group holding two French hostages demanded a $5 million ransom for them and gave a 48-hour deadline to come up with the cash.
The authenticity of the statement could not be immediately verified.
France had earlier said it was hopeful the men were alive and well and could be released soon.
Journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot were seized on August 20th by a militant group called the Islamic Army in Iraq, which initially demanded Paris scrap a law banning Muslim headscarves in state schools.
France refused that demand.