The Iraqi high tribunal is set to give its verdict on Sunday on six former aides of Saddam Hussein accused of slaughtering 182,000 Kurdish villagers during a 1988 military campaign in northern Iraq.

Roadside bombs killed seven American troops in Iraq on Saturday, including four in a single strike outside Baghdad, the military said, as US and Iraqi troops captured two senior Al Qaeda gunmen in northern Iraq.

The failure of the latest Arab League mission to get Lebanon’s Western-backed government and the Iran- and Syria-supported opposition to talk together shows that outsiders control the country’s destiny, analysts said on Saturday.