Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas dispatched top aides to Washington on Sunday to try to narrow differences with Israel and ensure wide Arab participation in a US-led peace conference.

Key Arab governments will announce Friday if they will attend a US-backed Mideast peace conference aimed at relaunching the stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, said an Arab League official Sunday.

After six years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, American soldiers are deserting their posts at the highest rate since 1980. The number of US army deserters this year shows an 80 per cent increase since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.