FALLUJAH, Iraq, Oct 15 (AFP) - US troops arrested on Friday a senior member of a delegation from the rebel Iraqi city of Fallujah that had been mediating a truce with the government, one of his colleagues said.
"They arrested him (Sheikh Khaled Hamoud) after Friday prayers at a mosque in the village of Albu-Issa outside Fallujah," Sheikh Abdul Hamid Jadu told AFP.
Jadu said he and Hamoud were together in Baghdad on Wednesday meeting members of the interim government before Prime Minister Iyad Allawi surprised them with his demand that they hand over the alleged Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, or face an invasion.
Before his arrest, Hamoud had said the delegation was close to working out a deal that would allow Iraqi forces back to the city and extend amnesty to some elements of the insurgency.
There was no immediate comment from the US military on Hamoud's arrest.
Jadu insisted that Zarqawi was not in Fallujah and only "a very small number of foreign fighters" remained in the Sunni Muslim city, west of Baghdad.
"Many of the foreign fighters were already blessed with martyrdom and many have left the city," he said.
"Those that remain, are really very, very few, and it would be disgraceful and dishonourable for us to hand them over to the US army since they had only come to Fallujah to support us and be on our side."
He accused the US military and the Iraqi government of being bent on waging an offensive against Fallujah. "God closes the gates of hell during Ramadan, but the Americans unleash their fire power."
Before dawn Friday, 1,000 US group troops, along with tanks and Iraqi special forces, rumbled toward Fallujah in a bid to flush out the Jordanian-born fighter, who has a 250-million-dollar bounty on his head.
This followed a day of fierce air and artillery strikes on suspected Zarqawi hideouts that left eight Iraqis killed and 23 wounded, according to hospital sources.