World highlights

¤ Israeli forces killed six Palestinians, at least three of them Hamas militants, during a Gaza Strip raid, pressing a nearly four-month offensive launched after a soldier was abducted, witnesses said. Hamas's armed wing responded by firing six make-shift rockets into Israel. No one was injured.

¤ The last article written by murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was an account from a Chechen man who said police passed electric shocks through his fingers until he confessed to terrorism. Ms Politkovskaya's Novaya Gazeta newspaper published the article she was working on when she was shot on the staircase of her apartment building on Saturday. Investigators say her murder was linked to her reporting.

¤ Former Virginia Governor Mark Warner, seen as a strong potential contender for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, said he would not seek the White House. Mr Warner, a moderate Democrat who left the governor's office earlier this year with extremely high approval ratings, stunned party strategists with the decision, which he said was not based on a political calculation about whether he could win the presidency.

¤ Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels handed over the bodies of 74 soldiers killed in battle to the Red Cross, taking the army's death toll in one of the worst clashes since a 2002 truce to at least 129. Nearly 300 soldiers were wounded in the fighting on Wednesday around the besieged government-held enclave of Jaffna in the far north. The violence is spurring fears that peace talks at the end of the month may be cancelled.

¤ Poland's ruling Law and Justice party bought a week's time to decide whether to hold snap elections or return to a rocky alliance with their leftist partners. Parliament agreed to suspend the session until October 17 to give Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski more time to try to form a coalition.