Egypt has urged the United States to recognise a united Palestinian state as warring factions Fatah and Hamas prepare to sign a landmark reconciliation pact in Cairo.

The appeal comes as the Palestinians indicated that they will ask the United Nations in September to recognise an independent state based on 1967 borders, a move condemned by both Israel and the United States.

Nabil al-Arabi, Egypt's Foreign Minister, told visiting US congressman Steve Chabot that recognising the state "would correspond with previous statements by the American administration supporting peace based on two states".

Northern League threatens to sink coalition as PM endures another day in court

Italy's belated decision to join the military campaign against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi has brought fresh political woes for Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, with opposition to the bombing threatening to sink his fragile coalition.

Senior figures in the Northern League want an end to Italian air strikes only a week after they began following a personal plea by US President Barack Obama to Mr Berlusconi. Parliament will vote on the Northern League motion to this effect later today.

WikiLeaks may have triggered the killing of Osama Bin Laden, it was suggested last night.

For although the CIA has thought since September that he was in hiding in Abbottabad, special forces stormed his fortress only days after the website published new secret documents.

These made reference to named 'couriers' carrying Bin Laden's message to his followers, and also to Abbottabad as a possible Al Qaeda bolthole.

America has already revealed that it was led to Bin Laden by tracking a man identified as his key courier.

When that courier was found in Abbottabad, the CIA began surveillance that led to the raid.

As a result, last night it was suggested the operation had to be launched before Bin Laden knew the game was up.

A 2002 CBS report of where Osama bin Laden was the night before Sept. 11, 2001 "terrorist attacks". The report claims bin Laden was in Pakistan getting kidney dialysis treatment at Rawalpindi Hospital.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney spent Tuesday correcting misstatements by administration officials on Osama bin Laden's final moments before he was gunned down Sunday.

"We provided a great deal of information with great haste in order to inform you ... about the operation," Carney said during a briefing, in a concession that administration officials have erred in their details of the raid on bin Laden's compound outside of Islamabad, Pakistan. "Obviously some of the information came in piece by piece and is being reviewed and updated and elaborated on."

Reading from a script carefully crafted by the Defense Department, Carney clarified that bin Laden was not armed with a gun when he was killed, contrary to some reports that he fired back at U.S. military operatives. In addition, White House counterinsurgency adviser John Brennan was wrong when he suggested Monday that one of bin Laden's wives was killed serving as a human shield for bin Laden during gunfire.

"In the room with bin Laden, a woman -- bin Laden's wife -- rushed the U.S. assaulter and was shot in the leg but not killed. Bin Laden was then shot and killed. He was not armed," Carney said. Separately, another woman on the first floor was killed in crossfire, which may have led to Brennan's misstatement.

The head of the CIA admitted yesterday that there was no live video footage of the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound as further doubts emerged about the US version of events.

Leon Panetta, director of the CIA, revealed there was a 25 minute blackout during which the live feed from cameras mounted on the helmets of the US special forces was cut off.

A photograph released by the White House appeared to show the President and his aides in the situation room watching the action as it unfolded. In fact they had little knowledge of what was happening in the compound.

In an interview with PBS, Mr Panetta said: "Once those teams went into the compound I can tell you that there was a time period of almost 20 or 25 minutes where we really didn't know just exactly what was going on. And there were some very tense moments as we were waiting for information.

Globalist think-tanks are already building a case against Pakistan

Bangkok, Thailand - Foundation for the Defense of Democracy (FDD) scribe and all around intellectually dishonest propagandist, Bill Roggio of the "Long War Journal," has dedicated his life to perpetuating the entirely fake "War on Terror," abandoning all objectivity with the very name of his now officially government funded, Neo-Conservative establishment affiliated blog. The term "Long War" of course is a throwback to the Bush era and constant reassurances by the president that indeed the "War on Terror" will be endless.

FDD and their doppelganger organization Foreign Policy Initiative - essentially the reincarnation of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) - were amongst the first in the wake of Obama's announcement to begin implicating Pakistan for harboring Bin Laden leading up to his death. These calls have only intensified.

Roggio's recent article, "Pakistani complicity in sheltering Osama bin Laden is evident" lays out what appears to be a convincing argument that not only was Pakistan aware of Bin Laden's presence in the city of Abbotabad, the center of Pakistan's military and intelligence community, but were complicit in providing him with sanctuary. Roggio is quick to remind readers of Pakistan's "vast links to terrorist groups."

Despite arguing that Pakistan was knowingly harboring the most notorious fugitive in human history, Roggio suggests that the US kept the operation a complete secret from Pakistani intelligence until the operation itself was underway - and even then - the US did not reveal the location of the operation because of a supposed lack of trust. Unfettered, Roggio skips past this lapse of logic either out of his own lack of imagination or his utter contempt for his readership. Of course, if Osama Bin Laden was actually in Abbotabad, and Pakistan was providing him sanctuary, wouldn't the compound itself be under constant watch? At the very least, after the operation was announced to Pakistani officials, wouldn't they already know the exact location?

Nobody could fault them. The Khans were good neighbours, always polite, and more than a cut above the rest, reports Peter Oborne.

They spoke perfect Pashtu - the language of Pakistan's unruly tribal areas - in a cultivated, urban accent. They were careful to pay their bills on time and popular with local shopkeepers.

Tehran -- Israeli fighter jets are conducting drills at a military base in Iraq in preparation for a strike on Iran, the Islamic Republic's Press TV reported.

The report said the Israeli planes participating in the drills include F-15, F-16, F-18 and F-22 fighter jets. It said they have conducted weeklong exercises,flying mainly at night.

Islamabad- Photographs acquired by Reuters and taken about an hour after the U.S. assault on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan show three dead men lying in pools of blood, but no weapons.

The photos, taken by a Pakistani security official who entered the compound after the early morning raid on Monday, show two men dressed in traditional Pakistani garb and one in a t-shirt, with blood streaming from their ears, noses and mouths.

The official, who wished to remain anonymous, sold the pictures to Reuters.

None of the men looked like bin Laden. U.S. President Barack Obama decided not to release photos of his body because it could have incited violence and used as an al Qaeda propaganda tool.

"I think that given the graphic nature of these photos, it would create some national security risk," Obama told the CBS programme 60 Minutes.