Toll in fighting put at nearly 800 but relative calm continues in most areas

AT LEAST 700 Iraqi fighters and 70 United States-led coalition soldiers have been killed in clashes this month, the US military said yesterday, confirming it to be the bloodiest period since the end of the war.

The final toll could be much higher, with US Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt admitting the lack of reliable figures for civilian casualties.

The deaths of four more US soldiers were announced yesterday. Three marines were killed "as a result of enemy action" on Sunday in Anbar province, which stretches from west of Baghdad.

A soldier was killed and four hurt when their patrol was hit the same day near Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad.

A convoy of lorries carrying armoured personnel carriers was attacked and burned yesterday in Latifiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad. Witnesses said three people were killed.

In Fallujah, US troops have discovered US military uniforms and suicide explosive belts in an insurgent cache, raising concerns of a new militant tactic of slipping in close to troops and blowing themselves up.

On Sunday, marines found three belts and a carton with "82nd Airborne" stamped on the top that was full of US army desert fatigues, said Lieutenant-Colonel Brennan Byrne, commander of the marines’ 1st Battalion.

Lt-Col Byrne said it was not clear whether an al-Qaeda-trained foreign cell was operating in Fallujah or if local militants were intending to use suicide tactics. Military commanders, however, say several foreign fighters have entered Fallujah and infiltrated the ranks of the insurgents.

The incidents came despite a continuing truce in Fallujah, where the fiercest fighting took place at the beginning of last week. Despite some clashes in the city over Sunday night, Iraqi mediators said they had secured an extension to the truce.

Rafa Hayad al-Issawi, director of the main hospital, said on Sunday he believed more than 600 Iraqis had died in the town.

Samir Rabee, who escaped from Fallujah with relatives, said: "I could see many bodies in the streets. Hundreds were lying in the street. Relatives were too scared to get them."

The Iraqi national security adviser called on Fallujah’s people to hand over insurgents, who killed and mutilated four US civilians on 31 March, as a way to halt the marines’ siege.

"I am calling on Fallujah’s good people ... to hand over these criminals and finish the bloodshed," said Mouwafak al-Rubaie, a former member of the Governing Council who was appointed by US administrators to his position last week.

It also appeared the stand-off with Shiite fighters loyal to the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr was easing. A Sadr aide said yesterday he has pulled his militia out of government facilities in the three cities they took control of last week.

Police were yesterday back on the streets and in their stations in Najaf, Kufa and Karbala for the first time since the bloody fighting.

Few of the black-garbed gunmen of the al-Mahdi army could be seen in Najaf’s streets, except around its holy shrines in the centre. Militiamen also stayed out of sight in Kufa, and their numbers had dropped around their main stronghold, the main mosque.

Lt-Col Ricardo Sanchez, the top US commander in Iraq, yesterday appeared to contradict reports that the coalition might be looking for a compromise with Sadr.

"The mission of US forces is to kill or capture Muqtada al-Sadr. That is our mission," he said. He added that the military did not know where Sadr was.

Iraqi Shiite political parties have been meeting Sadr representatives to try to find a peaceful way to end the standoff. "Al-Sayed al-Sadr issued instructions for his followers to leave the sites of police and the government," said a lawyer, Murtada al-Janabi, one of the cleric’s representatives in the talks.