World

Iraqi exiles ended their conference on a successor administration should Saddam Hussein be ousted, agreeing on some details of a leadership committee. But it was not immediately clear whether the meeting in London had resolved the makeup of the committee, and delegates representing five Shiite groups walked out of the closing session in protest at what they said was the apparent dominance of a rival movement. The anti- Hussein exiles agreed to reconvene in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq Jan. 15.

A pizza deliveryman arrested by undercover police in Canada is a secret Al Qaeda operative, and his case is evidence that the US's northern neighbor harbors terrorist sleeper cells, a government intelligence report said. It said such cells "have the capacity and conviction" to support terrorist activities across North America. The suspect, an Algerian immigrant, was seized last week in Ottawa as a threat to national security. In other terrorism-related developments:

• Test results were to be announced in Paris Tuesday on a cache of chemicals seized in a raid on the home of three suspected Muslim radicals. Two Algerians and a Moroccan national were arrested and extremist literature and $5,000 in cash were confiscated. Paris has been bracing for a possible terrorist attack timed for the year-end holidays.

• A teenager reportedly confessed to wounding two US soldiers and their Afghan driver in a grenade attack near the presidential palace in Kabul. The injuries appeared to be serious. The suspect was quoted as saying he carried out the attack "for the cause of Muslims."

Late opinion polls were showing Thursday's presidential election in South Korea too close to call, as voters choose a successor to Nobel Peace Prize-winner Kim Dae Jung. Pollsters based their findings on a huge segment of the electorate that reports being undecided between the candidacies of Kim's protégé, labor lawyer Roh Moo Hyun, and ex-Prime Minister Lee Hoi Chang. The vote comes amid heightened tensions on the peninsula over rival North Korea's plan to restart a nuclear reactor and a rising tide of anti-US sentiment, especially among young people.

All parties to the four-year-long civil war in Congo signed a treaty aimed at ending hostilities and leading the nation to its first democratic elections since 1960. The deal, reached after months of negotiations, calls for President Joseph Kabila to remain in power until the vote can be held - likely in 2-1/2 years. The war broke out in 1998 in an attempt to oust Kabila's father. It drew in rebels backed by neighboring Rwanda and Uganda as well as troops from Angola, Namibia, and Zimbabwe. An estimated 2 million people were killed, among them the elder Kabila, who was assassinated early last year.