FALLUJAH, Iraq, Oct 15 (AFP) - More than 1,000 US and Iraqi ground troops encircled the insurgent-held Iraqi city of Fallujah Friday in a bid to trap rebels, including followers of Iraq's public enemy number one, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi.
As the US military began a mass dragnet, Sunni Muslim clerics threatened to declare holy war on the Americans and charged that marines had arrested a key Fallujah leader involved in the negotiations to avert an armed confrontation.
The marines refuted the allegations.
After sneaking up in the dark of night, following blistering air strikes on Fallujah Thursday, US and Iraqi forces formed a ring around the city as they manned checkpoints.
"Iraqi and multi-national forces have taken up vehicle checkpoints around the city of Fallujah with the purpose of channeling anti-Iraqi forces through these main points of passage, identifying and detaining them," spokesman Lieutenant Lyle Gilbert told AFP.
Iraqi special forces, tanks and infantry blocked the entrances to the community of 200,000 people 50 miles (31 kilometres) west of Baghdad, with the purpose of thwarting "terror attacks" and with an eye to securing Iraq ahead of January elections, Gilbert said.
The city was calm but tense after the intense US air and artillery bombardments on purported rebel safehouses that ran into the early hours of Friday left at least eight people dead and 23 wounded, according to medics at Fallujah's main hospital.
A furious Iraqi Sunni Muslim religious leader called for protests against the offensive and threatened holy war across Iraq if the onslaught continued.
It is the biggest deployment of US ground forces since last April when marines and insurgents battled in Fallujah, leaving hundreds dead. That campaign ended in an inconclusive stand-off.
The US military vehemently denied Friday that it had arrested a senior member of a delegation from the rebel Iraqi city of Fallujah that had been mediating a truce with the government.
"We have not detained this gentleman," a marine statement said, referring to Sheikh Khaled Hamoud.
One of Hamoud's colleagues in the collapsed negotiations with the Iraqi government, Sheikh Abdul Hamid Jadu, told AFP earlier that Hamoud had been arrested after Friday prayers in the village of Albu-Issa outside Fallujah.
The giant operation followed Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's threat Wednesday to invade the city unless its people handed over Zarqawi, who has a 25-million-dollar price on his head.
"We have asked Fallujah residents to turn over Zarqawi and his group. If they don't do it, we are ready for major operations in Fallujah," Allawi said.
The US military trumpeted the barrage, which included some artillery strikes, as a bold new offensive upsetting the five-month stalemate in Fallujah, Zarqawi's suspected stronghold.
"The status quo in certain cities in Iraq is unacceptable. This operation puts the anti-Iraqi Forces (US military terminology for insurgents) in Fallujah on notice," a military statement read.
On Thursday, a delegation of city elders and leaders pulled out of talks with the government, protesting at Allawi's threat.
"We were taken aback by Allawi's comments... since there was no mention of Zarqawi during the talks," said one delegate.
"Allawi and his government will bear the responsibility of the spilling of Muslim blood in Fallujah."
He said delegates were close to reaching a breakthrough in talks that would allow Iraqi forces to return to the city before Allawi imposed "impossible conditions."
"Basically he was telling us that he did not want to negotiate, so we suspended the talks from our end," he said.
Since April, Fallujah has been a virtual no-go zone for American soldiers.