Five die in Falluja air strikes

Meanwhile, British Black Watch troops were today preparing to begin active patrols close to the city, which is around 30 miles west of Baghdad, blocking off exit routes and helping to free up US forces for an attack.

Last week, the UK troops moved north from the British sector based around Basra to relieve US marines in a US-controlled area south-east of the city.

The forces have already been on patrol near their new base, Camp Dogwood, which they have been establishing as they attempted to secure the area, a bleak former industrial sector.

Militants have fired mortars towards the camp in recent days. None of the attacks have so far succeeded, but the Black Watch wants to secure the immediate area before extending patrols closer to the city.

Falluja - a predominately Sunni Muslim area - has been a centre of insurgency since last year, and Washington is keen to subdue it ahead of January's scheduled Iraqi elections.

It is believed to be the place from which the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is operating. He has been accused of being one of the principal leaders of the insurgency, and has been blamed for the killings of several hostages, including the Briton Ken Bigley.

It was thought that the Black Watch - which controversially moved into the US sector after an approach by US commanders - would mount patrols in an attempt to arrest militants and prevent them from moving arms in and out of Falluja.

Speaking in the Commons yesterday, the prime minister, Tony Blair, dismissed accusations by a Labour backbench critic of the war that the planned military action in Falluja amounted to "collective punishment" of the city's people.

Anti-war Labour MP Alice Mahon demanded assurances that "when the United States launch their 'bomb into submission' policy on Falluja, our army will not become involved in any way in what are collective punishments that indiscriminately kill innocent civilians".

Mr Blair replied: "What we cannot allow - the Iraqi government can't and we can't - is a situation where outside terrorists and others use Falluja as a base to mount operations killing innocent civilians and our soldiers, who are doing a job blessed by the UN security council resolution."

Yesterday was another bloody day in Iraq. An unknown group claimed it beheaded three Iraqi National Guardsmen, and a video showing the beheading of another Iraqi was released.

Gunmen kidnapped a Lebanese-American businessman, and a US soldier was killed and another wounded in a roadside bombing 12 miles south of Baghdad.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1343328,00.html