US pounds Fallujah in ground and air assault

A thousand US troops moved against the rebel town of Fallujah yesterday, following a night of relentless air and ground strikes, in response to suicide bombings in the American-controlled Green Zone in Baghdad.

A thousand US troops moved against the rebel town of Fallujah yesterday, following a night of relentless air and ground strikes, in response to suicide bombings in the American-controlled Green Zone in Baghdad.

The offensive, supported by Iraqi government forces, tanks and artillery, came after the interim government threatened retaliation unless Fallujah gives up the Jordanian militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has claimed responsibility for the Green Zone blasts. The attacks began just a few hours after the ultimatum was issued on Thursday night.

Yesterday US forces arrested Khaled al-Jumaili, the town's chief negotiator in recent talks with the government, as well as the police chief and two of his most senior officers. Mr Jumaili was arrested as he left a mosque following Friday prayers, the others while trying to move their families to the nearby town of Habaniyah for safety. Civic leaders in Fallujah said the demand by the interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi that they hand over Zarqawi was an "impossible condition to meet". The Americans, they pointed out, with all their firepower and the offer of a $25m (£14m) reward, had failed to capture or kill him. Abu Assad, a spokesman for Fallujah's Religious Council, said: "Since we exhausted all peaceful solutions, the city is now ready to bear arms and defend itself."

Yesterday's deployment was the biggest against the town since the US offensive in April.

US forces withdrew after several weeks of fighting, but the anger sparked by the attack, in which 600 Iraqis were killed, is seen as the catalyst for the violent insurgency which has spiralled since then.

Yesterday's operation coincided with the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Muslim clerics called for a civil disobedience campaign across Iraq if the Americans continued with their advance, and threatened to call a jihad against coalition forces. A statement read out in Sunni mosques in Baghdad and elsewhere said: "Al-Zarqawi has become the pretext for flattening civilian houses and killing innocent civilians. It is [a] lie just like the weapons of mass destruction."

US and Iraqi authorities say military operations during Ramadan are justified because the insurgents are believed to be planning to step up their attacks. Yesterday in Baghdad a car loaded with 300lb of explosives blew up near a police station, killing 10 people.

The US military stressed Fallujah operations would continue. "Units are moving forward ... Their mission is to disrupt the the enemy's ability to conduct terror attacks, specifically in the city of Fallujah," a spokesman, said. However, another spokeswoman said she was "not aware" of any immediate plans to recapture the city. "They are apparently hitting targets of opportunity," she added.

Among locations hit, according to the military, were two "Zarqawi planning centres", weapons dumps, safehouses, and insurgent checkpoints.

There were early reports of clashes in the northern part of Fallujah, while US forces advancing from the west used loudspeakers to urge insurgents to lay down their arms.

Yesterday morning doctors in Fallujah said eight people had been killed and around 12 injured in the air strikes.

Later US forces ringed the town with roadblocks and there was little further detail of casualties. According to some Fallujah residents who managed to get out through the checkpoints, tanks and armoured cars had surrounded the city. Insurgent fighters in the town were expecting an attack at nightfall.

A British contractor, Michael Fitzpatrick of Leyland, who was injured in Thursday's Green Zone blasts, said: "There was this incredible explosion and I was somersaulted in the air. I thought I was dead. But I got up and I was on fire. I put out the flames ... I was in the middle of a fireball and I'm alive."