Secret talks between American negotiators and Peter Moore’s captors were being held without the British Government’s knowledge, the father of the freed British hostage claimed today.

The dead British hostages handed over to authorities in Iraq were identified today as Jason Creswell and Jason Swindlehurst.

A car bomb exploded in a Shiite holy city and 13 members of one Shiite family were gunned down north-east of the capital today in a surge of attacks that killed at least 30 people despite heightened security aimed at curbing sectarian violence following the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine.

Iraqi forces could begin an offensive against Muqtada al-Sadr within hours, despite the firebrand cleric’s acceptance of a cease-fire proposal, an Iraqi Cabinet minister said today.

SHI'ITE gunmen seized a police station in Najaf yesterday in the first outbreak of fighting since an agreement to end weeks of bloody clashes between US troops and militia forces.