A senior officer of the US-backed Fallujah Brigade today disputed US claims that an air strike had hit a safehouse of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s network.

A US military plane fired missiles into a residential neighbourhood in Fallujah today, killing at least 20 and levelling houses in the Sunni Muslim city, police and residents said.

SABOTEURS have struck a new blow to Iraq's vital oil industry, cutting exports to a third of their previous level. Oil Minister Thamir Ghadhban confirmed blasts at a pipeline which fed storage tanks at Basra oil terminal in the Gulf.

Dozens of Iraqis today accused Fallujah police of handing over Shiite truck drivers to Sunni extremists who slaughtered them after they sought refuge at a police station.

ESCORTED by Iraqi forces, US Marines entered the centre of Fallujah yesterday for the first time since the end of the bloody siege last month.

Iraqi Shiite militiamen fired several mortar shells at a US base in Najaf early today and at a city hall guarded by Bulgarian troops in another Shiite city.

The former Republican Guards general appointed to head an Iraqi army inside besieged Fallujah is to be demoted within days of his appointment.

Eleven US troops were killed in attacks across Iraq, including a mortar barrage in which six soldiers died and 30 were wounded.