A possible rape charge against disgraced President Moshe Katsav has been dropped after he accepted a plea bargain for sexual offences on Thursday, in the worst scandal involving an Israeli leader.

A car bomb killed 25 people on Thursday at a busy intersection in Baghdad where minibuses pick up and drop off passengers, while a roadside bomb killed three British soldiers in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.

Lebanese troops raided a cave hideout of Islamic gunmen in the hills of northern Lebanon on Thursday and killed six fighters, as the violence continued to spread from a Palestinian refugee camp where the military has been battling an Al Qaeda-inspired group.