Saddam's elite troops are on the move, says US

American intelligence says it has detected the movement of elite Iraqi army troops including elements of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard into new positions. Defence officials said that, in recent days, trucks had been sent to the north to pick up members of the Republican Guard and reposition them around the President's hometown of Tikrit.

Iraqi foreign ministry officials refused to discuss any details, insisting the movements were "routine and limited".

Troops, armed police and paramilitaries were seen taking up positions in Baghdad yesterday after the Iraqi leader warned of impending war and asked for his citizens to dig trenches to prepare for American and British air attacks.

President Saddam called for "full preparations" for conflict during a meeting with the governors of the country's 18 provinces, and ordered that they must ensure the populace had adequate shelters. They should dig in their gardens, he said, "so that even if a shell should fall on their home, God forbid, a deep trench will protect them".

The governors, in olive uniforms and black berets, said they were ready and prepared "to confront the invaders" and they had formed "jihad groups of clerics and tribesmen to fight the attackers, and commando units to hunt helicopters".

The Iraqi government has increased the amount of food rations distributed to the population and advised them to stock up on essential supplies. Power stations are likely to be among the first targets of US and British warplanes.

Troops and police have begun wartime exercises in Baghdad, with important installations now guarded by anti-aircraft batteries, and walls of sandbags being erected. Baghdad still remains a largely demilitarised city, though, and some of the policemen stood in street corners giggling as they tried on their combat kits.

Despite President Saddam's urging, there was no immediate sign of a rush to tear up gardens to build bunkers. Majid Kasim Nasruddin, 54, a businessman shopping in Arasat, said "We are in a special situation in Iraq because of all the wars we have been through.

"I have already got a trench in my garden from the war against Iran. I am going to extend it because my family has grown since then. But I am concentrating on buying things like kerosene lamps."

In the meantime, UN inspectors checked a pit in which Iraq claims it had destroyed bombs containing biological agents. They took samples from the site near al-Aziziya, 60 miles south-east of Baghdad, where Iraq said it had disposed of R-400 bombs in 1991.

Inspectors also oversaw workers drill holes in 155mm artillery shells, containing mustard gas, which the government reported to the United Nations Monitoring and Verification Commission(Unmovic).

A South African delegation in Baghdad at the invitation of Iraq to help it destroy weapons of mass destruction maintained yesterday that President Saddam was genuine in saying he was willing to disarm.

The voluntary South African nuclear, and to a lesser extent chemical and biological, disarmament process is recognised by – among others – America as a model of its kind.

Aziz Pahad, the South African deputy foreign minister, said: "They have asked for South African technical assistance over the issues of VX gas and anthrax, what happens when there isn't adequate documents on the matter available, for instance, and this is one of the issues we are considering."