Phnom Penh - A delegation from Iraq's national landmine authority is touring some of Cambodia's former Khmer Rouge strongholds as part of a bilateral effort to share expertise, a senior Cambodian government official said Wednesday.

Cambodian Mine Action Authority deputy director-general Heng Ratana said the Iraq delegation would visit former Khmer Rouge stronghold of Pailin on the Thai-Cambodian border, about 400 kilometres from the capital, as part of a fact-finding mission.

"We hope to arrange an exchange programme so each country can experience conditions in the other and we can share information and all our lessons learned," he said by telephone.

Baghdad - Iraq's health ministry announced Tuesday that 20 new cases of cholera have been reported in the province of Babel, raising fears an epidemic might break out.

The central Iraqi province, 100 kilometres south of Baghdad, was placed on alert Monday after four people died of the disease.

"Laboratory reports from the Babel health department indicate there are 200 suspected cases of cholera," which is characterized by vomiting and diarrhoea, the provincial council said.

The council has ordered the water, electricity and health departments to go on alert in an effort to stop the spread of the disease, health ministry spokesman Ehsaan Jaafar said.

Washington - The United States plans to bring another 8,000 troops home from Iraq by February while expand its military presence in Afghanistan, President George W Bush was to announce Tuesday.

The Iraq force reductions were recommended by General David Petraeus, commander of US forces in Iraq, due to a sharp drop in violence in Iraq over the last several months, Bush will say, according to prepared remarks released late Monday.

Baghdad - Unknown assailants have killed a married couple in their car in the Iraqi province of Diyala, Voices of Iraq radio reported on Monday.

The couple's son was injured in the attack, which took place on Sunday evening in the village of Bani Saad.

It was not clear whether extremists or bandits carried out that attack.

The head of the militia in the village of Mansuriya, also in Diyala, was abducted Monday, Aswat al-Iraq reported, citing the police, who suspect al-Qaeda terrorists as being behind the abduction.

Rabat, Morocco/Washington - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Sunday dismissed allegations in a new book by one of the top US investigative reporters that she played politics in 2006 with growing violence in Iraq.

Rice, who spoke in Morocco during an ongoing trip through northern Africa, said that she had tried to avoid a review of Iraq during the 2006 mid-term elections to prevent the issue from becoming a political football.