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.

Preparations were today under way for the return to the UK of former hostage Peter Moore after his release yesterday from two and a half years of captivity in Iraq.

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.

Shiite insurgents fired mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades at a police station housing US troops in gun battles early today that killed three Iraqis in Baghdad in a stronghold of rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.