3. Security worsens in Iraq

    The security situation in Iraq had became more worrying since February with more attacks by insurgents on the U.S. and British troops in the country and increasing sectarian conflicts in which thousands of Iraqis were killed and 420,000 were forced to flee their homes.

    Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, about 600,000 Iraqi civilians and more than 2,900 U.S. soldiers have been killed. United Nations General Secretary Kofi Annan said that Iraq has been plunged into a civil war.

    Badly affected by the Iraq war, Republicans lost control of both U.S. Houses of Congress. Defense Minister Donald Rumsfeld resigned. 

    4. Lebanon-Israel conflict takes huge toll.

    Israel launched a military offensive in south Lebanon on July 12 after Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others during cross-border attacks.

    The 34-day-long conflict between Israel and Hezbollah ended on Aug. 14 after Israel agreed to a UN-brokered truce without retrieving the two captive soldiers or disarming the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah.

    The conflict killed about 2,000 people and nearly one million Lebanese became refugees. The economic loss suffered by Lebanon amounted to more than three billion U.S. dollars.

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