Mosque shooting probe

• US troops appear to be shown killing unarmed man in mosque

• Controversy sure to erupt over film footage shown on TV networks

• Resistance still going on in city against US assaults

Key quote

"What you’re seeing now are some of the hardliners. They seem to be better equipped than some of the earlier ones, we’ve seen flak jackets on some of them. But we’re more determined and we’re going to wipe them out" - Major General Richard Natonski

Story in full THE US military was last night investigating television footage that appeared to show a marine in Fallujah shoot dead an injured and apparently unarmed man inside a mosque.

The images were set to inflame critics of the handling of the war in Iraq and the behaviour of US units engaged in the fighting.

Pictures aired on TV networks showed a man slumped on the floor of a mosque, where rebels had earlier been shooting at US troops.

When the troops realised the man was not dead, one opened fire, hitting him in the head at close range. The wounded man was half-sitting against the wall, wearing an orange headscarf.

Before the troops entered the mosque, one is heard saying: "We have got two in there."

Another asks: "Did you shoot them? Did they have any weapons on them?"

As the cameraman follows the marines inside, one is heard to say: "These are the two wounded that they never picked up."

There is shouting among the marines and then one opens fire. At that point news channels, including CNN, blacked out the image.

The marines shown in the footage, which was filmed on Saturday, were from the Third Battalion of the First Marine Regiment. According to reports in the US, the marines had come under fire last Thursday from the mosque shown in the footage.

Marines returned fire with tanks and machine guns. When they went into the mosque on the same day they found 10 fighters dead and five wounded.

They pulled out of the mosque, but saw activity in the building the following day.

When they went in for a second time they saw the man slumped against the wall.

One marine is heard shouting: "He’s faking he’s dead."

There was another shout: "He’s breathing."

Gunfire rang out, and one marine said: "He’s dead now."

Pentagon officials said the marine who fired had been taken off the battlefield.

It also emerged that the marine in question had been shot and wounded the day before the incident in the mosque.

Military officials said a rebel tactic was to draw US soldiers in by pretending to be dead and then opening fire.

Meanwhile fighting continued in Fallujah for an eighth day as US warplanes bombarded hard core rebel areas in the devastated Iraqi city.

Despite US claims over the weekend that they were now in control of the entire city, several pockets of die-hard militant resistance remained.

Aid agencies were again stopped by US forces from reaching the combat area in the town amid growing concern about the scale of the civilian toll wrought by the military operation.

As the operation continued in Fallujah, fighting erupted in other parts of Iraq’s Sunni Muslim region with clashes reported in Mosul and Baquba, while rebels hit oil facilities in the north.

Also yesterday a new audio tape emerged purporting to be from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in which the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist called on militants outside Fallujah to mobilise and attack US supply lines across Iraq.

The US marine general who commanded the fight to take Fallujah said those who remained were the rebel hard core who would be killed. There was no aid crisis in the city, he said.

"What you’re seeing now are some of the hardliners. They seem to be better equipped than some of the earlier ones, we’ve seen flak jackets on some of them," Major General Richard Natonski said. "But we’re more determined and we’re going to wipe them out," he said.

While US forces have won a military victory, the process of rebuilding Fallujah, helping about 150,000 residents who fled and preparing it for January elections could take months.

Iraq’s Red Crescent group sent seven lorry-loads of food and medicine to the city, but US forces blocked the aid convoy at Fallujah’s main hospital and said it could not enter. The convoy turned back yesterday after three days of frustration.

"It’s our third day here at the hospital and all we have done is receive promises from the Americans," Hassan Rawi, a member of the International Federation of the Red Cross, said. "We are very worried."

US commanders say they are working to deliver assistance to the city themselves, and urged any Iraqis needing aid to go to Fallujah’s main hospital on the western outskirts.

Iraq’s interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi said he did not believe any civilians were killed in the offensive, which has left 38 US soldiers, six Iraqi troops and more than 1,200 insurgents dead. But witness accounts contradicted him.

A member of an Iraqi relief committee told al-Jazeera television he saw 22 bodies buried in rubble in Fallujah’s northern Jolan district on Sunday. "Of the 22 bodies, five were found in one house as well as two children whose ages did not exceed 15, and a man with an artificial leg," Mohammed Farhan Awad said. "Some of the bodies we found had been eaten by stray dogs and cats. It was a very painful sight."

Aid agencies have described the situation as a humanitarian disaster.

US forces yesterday said they had found a bunker with reinforced tunnels leading to stores of weapons, including an anti-aircraft artillery gun.

Several suspected hostage- holding cells have also been uncovered in the operation although no word has yet been heard of Margaret Hassan, a British aid worker with Iraqi citizenship who was kidnapped last month. The body of a Western woman found in Fallujah on Sunday has yet to be identified.

More than 10,000 US troops have been involved in the operation to wrest Fallujah from an estimated 2,000-3,000 rebels.

The Fallujah offensive has fuelled violence across Iraq’s Sunni Muslim heartland, especially in Mosul where gunmen hold some districts following an uprising.

Two US soldiers were wounded in a car bomb attack on a convoy on the highway leading west from the city of two million.

"I expect the next few days will bring some hard fighting," US commander Brigadier General Carter Ham said in an e-mail. "The situation in Mosul is tense, but certainly not desperate."

There were also heavy clashes between US troops and insurgents in Baquba, about 40 miles north of Baghdad.

Meanwhile, the US yesterday suffered a double blow in its efforts to maintain a multinational presence in Iraq when both Hungary and the Netherlands said they would not extend their missions in the country. Hungary will withdraw its forces by the end of 2004 while Dutch troops will leave in mid March next year.

Hungary’s parliament voted down a government proposal to extend the mission of its 300-strong military contingent in Iraq, obliging Budapest to withdraw its forces by the end of 2004. Parliament voted by 191 to 159 to support an extension to the end of March, but the motion required a two-thirds majority to pass. The opposition centre-right parties voted against the proposal.

The foreign minister Ben Bot said yesterday the Dutch will stick to its withdrawal schedule from Iraq, despite an appeal by the United States to keep its troops there as long as needed.

"We leave Iraq by the middle of March. That is the decision. That decision still stands," Mr Bot told foreign correspondents.