It is an admission of defeat. Iraq is turning into one of the world’s bloodiest battlefields in which nobody is safe. Blind to this reality, Tony Blair said yesterday that Britain could safely cut its forces in Iraq because the apparatus of the Iraqi government is growing stronger.

Iran continues to enrich uranium in defiance of a UN Security Council ultimatum, a nuclear watchdog said today. In a report to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors, UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei said:

Four Iraqi soldiers have been accused of raping a 50-year-old Sunni woman and the attempted rape of her two daughters. It is the second allegation of sexual assault levelled against Iraqi forces this week.