OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Not wanting to end its three-week blitz on Lebanon empty-handed, Israel scrambled to clear Hizbollah fighters from a large strip of the south Tuesday before a ceasefire is announced.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Bombings and shootings killed at least 70 people Tuesday — including a US and a British soldier — in a surge of violence as US troops prepare to take back Baghdad’s streets from the gunmen. The dead included 20 Iraqi troops killed in a bus attack in …

DUBAI — Pentagon auditors peering into US reconstruction programmes in Iraq found an accountant’s nightmare of mistakes, cloaked expenses and financial juggling that hid costs and delays, according to US reports released over the past week.