Fallujah battle kills 16 and forces relief convoy back

FIERCE battles between insurgents and US and Iraqi forces killed at least 16 people yesterday in the latest in a wave of clashes that has swept Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland.

A convoy of ambulances and relief supplies trying to enter Fallujah was forced to turn back because the fighting made it too dangerous, the head of the Iraqi Red Crescent said.

The Red Crescent and Red Cross have been unable to gain access to people inside Fallujah during over a week of violence.

Even as the fighting continued in the city, Iraq's interior minister declared victory in the offensive.

"Fallujah is no more a safe haven for the terrorists and killers. This thing is over," Falah Hassan al-Naqib said in Baghdad.

Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's office confirmed two of his female relatives who were kidnapped last week have been freed.

Mr Allawi's cousin, Ghazi Allawi, 75, his cousin's wife and his cousin's pregnant daughter-in-law were abducted at gunpoint in Baghdad last Tuesday. There was no word on the cousin.

US marines were trying to identify the disembowelled body of a Western woman wrapped in a blood-soaked blanket found on a street in Fallujah.

The only Western women known to have been taken hostage are Margaret Hassan, 59, Irish-born director of CARE International in Iraq, and Teresa Borcz Khalifa, 54, a Polish-born long-time resident of Iraq.

Outside Fallujah, US and Iraqi troops and insurgents clashed in several cities across a belt of central and northern Iraq, including Baqouba, Ramadi, Mosul and Suwayrah, south of Baghdad. In Baqouba, at least 27 insurgents were killed after they attacked US soldiers with rocket-propelled grenades and arms fire near a police station.

In Suwayrah, gunmen carried out attacks on a police station and an Iraqi National Guard headquarters. Police shot an attacker who attempted to drive an explosives-laden car at the headquarters.

Seven Iraqi police and national guardsmen were killed, including Major Hadi Refeidi, the Suwayrah police station's director.

The week-old offensive in Fallujah has left at least 38 American troops and six Iraqi soldiers dead. The US estimated more than 1,200 insurgents have been killed.

US forces resumed heavy air strikes and artillery fire yesterday, with warplanes making between 20 and 30 bombing sorties in Fallujah and surrounding areas.

They discovered networks of steel-reinforced tunnels and underground bunkers.