The inquiry into Britain's involvement in the Iraq war could publish its long-awaited conclusions in 2014 after discussions between Tony Blair and George W. Bush are published, news reports said on Monday.

A government source told the Independent newspaper that "good progress" had been made in talks between the inquiry body and the government on declassifying many of the records of their conversations.

A British doctor who died while being held in custody in Syria was buried on Thursday, with his brother describing him as "our star".

Abbas Khan's family believe he was murdered, but the Syrian regime says he took his own life.

Some 50,000 homes in Britain were without power on Christmas Day following recent storms, while hundreds of people were evacuated Wednesday due to flooding.

Meanwhile London Gatwick Airport was struggling with power outages in parts of its North Terminal, causing delays to departing flights.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has written to the mother of a British doctor who died in a Syrian jail, saying Damascus must answer for his "sickening" death, the family's lawyer revealed Sunday.

Syria claims Abbas Khan, who was arrested last year after traveling to Aleppo to treat wounded civilians, committed suicide. But a British minister said this week that he was "in effect murdered" by the regime.

The body of Abbas Khan, the British doctor who died in a Syrian jail, was brought to Lebanon Saturday in a Red Cross convoy, said an Agence France Presse correspondent at the border.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Lebanese Red Cross escorted Khan's remains out of Syria and into Lebanon in a three-car convoy, the correspondent said.

The ceiling of a top London theater collapsed during a performance on Thursday, causing an unknown number of casualties, a police spokesman said.

"We were called to the Apollo Theater in Shaftesbury Avenue to reports of a ceiling collapse during a performance. We are aware of a number of casualties, we don't know how many," the Scotland Yard spokesman told Agence France Presse.

Two Muslim fanatics were found guilty Thursday of murdering a British soldier whom they butchered in broad daylight on a London street.

Lee Rigby was knocked down by a car and then nearly decapitated as Michael Adebolajo, 29, and Michael Adebowale, 22, hacked him to death with a meat cleaver and knives outside his barracks on May 22.

A British doctor who died in Syrian custody and whom London says was murdered had been detained for "unauthorized activities," a report said Wednesday, adding that he had hanged himself.

"British citizen Abbas Khan entered Syrian territory illegally and undertook unauthorized activities... the cause of death being asphyxia caused by hanging," said a medical report cited by the official SANA news agency.

Prime Minister David Cameron paid a pre-Christmas visit to British troops in Afghanistan on Monday and reiterated that no British forces will be in a combat role there by the end of 2014.

Cameron spent the unannounced visit at Camp Bastion in southern Afghanistan, accompanied by former England and Liverpool footballer Michael Owen, his Downing Street office said.

Iran's new envoy to Britain held talks with officials in London on Friday, the foreign ministry said, as ties thaw between the two countries.

The visit by non-resident charge d'affaires Hassan Habibollah-Zadeh follows a trip to Tehran last week by his British counterpart Ajay Sharma.