Gunships in fresh assault on Fallujah

MULTIPLE explosions shook Fallujah after dark yesterday as fighting erupted in the Iraqi city for the second straight night.

An American AC-130 gunship hammered targets in the city as blasts and gunfire went on steadily for more than half an hour. The violence mainly affected the northern Jolan district, where Sunni insurgents are concentrated.

Flames could be seen rising from buildings, and mosque loudspeakers in other parts of the city called on firefighters to mobilise.

The fighting erupted after a two-day extension to a ceasefire ended. Earlier in the day, US aircraft dropped leaflets in the city of 200,000 people, calling on insurgents to surrender.

"Surrender, you are surrounded," the leaflets said. "If you are a terrorist, beware, because your last day was yesterday.

"In order to spare your life end your actions and surrender to coalition forces now. We are coming to arrest you."

Fighting in the same area on Monday night killed one US marine and eight insurgents, while tank fire destroyed a mosque minaret that US commanders said insurgents were using as sniper's nest.

On Sunday, the US military had announced a two-day extension to the fragile ceasefire in Fallujah to give political efforts a chance, despite earlier threats of an all-out assault.

Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said there was no ultimatum for the launch of an assault if political efforts were not showing results.

"We don't think deadlines are helpful," he added.

Yesterday also saw US Marines pushing ahead with plans for a key part of their political strategy the introduction of joint US-Iraqi patrols into Fallujah.

Elsewhere in Iraq, US troops fought militiamen overnight near Najaf, killing 64 gunmen and destroying an anti-aircraft gun.

Meanwhile, in Baghdad an American solider was killed. This raises the US death toll for April to 115 the same number of troops lost during the invasion of Iraq last year.

The battle outside Najaf was one of the heaviest yet with forces loyal to Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

American troops moved into a base in Najaf that Spanish troops are abandoning, but promised to stay away from the sensitive Shi'ite shrines at the heart of the southern city.

The latest fighting in the region started on Monday evening on the east side of the Euphrates River, across from Kufa and Najaf.

Kimmitt said that Shi'ite militiamen opened fire on a US patrol and seven insurgents were killed. Hours later, a M1 tank was attacked with rocket-propelled grenades, triggering a heavy battle in which warplanes destroyed an anti-aircraft gun belonging to the militia and killed 57 gunmen.

Najaf hospitals listed 37 dead, all young men of fighting age, suggesting they may have been militiamen.

Sheik Amer al-Husseini, an official at al-Sadr's office in Baghdad, said 25 people were killed. He did not say how many of the casualties were militiamen.

TV footage taken between Najaf and nearby Kufa showed US army helicopters flying low over smoke rising from an area in the distance amid.

An al-Sadr aide in Najaf, Mustaq al-Khafaji, accused the US of trying to advance toward Kufa. "We will face the Americans whenever they show up," he warned.

The US authorities have vowed to capture al-Sadr and uproot his militia, the al-Mahdi Army, which launched a bloody uprising at the beginning of April.

About 2,000 troops are deployed outside Najaf, but they are having to tread carefully. Any action that even brings the possibility of harm to the sacred Imam Ali Shrine at its heart could turn the limited al-Sadr revolt into a widespread uprising by Iraq's Shi'ites, who make up the majority of the country's population.

Yesterday also saw a Red Cross team visiting Saddam Hussein to check on the conditions in which he was being held. It was the first such visit since the Red Cross saw the captured Iraqi dictator in February.