FALLUJAH, Iraq (AFP) - Rebels battled for their lives in Fallujah as US troops closed in for the kill, while 10 people died in a Baghdad car bomb and two US helicopters were forced to land under a hail of bullets.
On the third full day of the battle for Fallujah, US marines said Thursday that they discovered three Iraqi hostages in the basement of houses, handcuffed and starving.
The discovery came as marines predicted that by Saturday they would take total control of the city, portrayed as the epicentre of a vicious insurgency.
But militants took the battle elsewhere, detonating a car bomb in a traffic jam in a central Baghdad shopping street and attacking two combat helicopters with small arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire.
Despite initial successes and superior firepower, combined US and Iraqi forces still faced pockets of resistance in Fallujah, where rebels were thought to be hunkering down in underground hideouts.
"We control about 75 percent of the city. The more we go in the more we find the fight is becoming fiercer," said marine Major PJ Batty.
"Some people are pushing through the city fast for the information campaign and they're leaving the real work for us," a marine officer added. He was referring to the fact that areas of the city were said to be under control, though pockets of resistance remained.
Moving house to house through the rubble-strewn streets, marines and soldiers encountered booby-trapped buildings, mortar fire, roadside bombs and snipers as the rebels resorted to guerrilla tactics to hamper their advance.
Troops found several buildings with their basements blocked off, a sign they said that the resistance fighters in this fiercely independent Sunni Muslim majority city could have barricaded themselves underground.
At least 10,000 US troops from a pool of 20,000, who have been gathering outside Fallujah since the middle of October, have fanned out inside the city since Monday, backed by 2,000 Iraqi soldiers.
Eleven US soldiers and two Iraqi troops have died since the offensive was launched, along with scores of rebels, the military said. The casualties could not be independently verified.
There are no clear figures about how many civilians have been caught in the crossfire, even though about two-thirds of Fallujah's estimated 300,000-strong population is thought to have fled ahead of the fighting.
A day after the Iraqi military revealed it had found a "slaughterhouse" in Fallujah where foreign hostages had been executed, Batty said three Iraqi hostages were found in "basements, handcuffed by their hands and ankles, starving, thirsty and tortured."
He said the military was on course to retake the city by Saturday morning.
Hopelessly outnumbered, and with their leaders apparently gone, rebels who spoke to an AFP reporter said they would fight to the end for Fallujah, which became a no-go area for US forces after a battle in April ended in stalemate.
With the city almost on its knees, there was no let-up in the bombings and kidnappings elsewhere that forced Allawi to declare a state of emergency across most of Iraq and slap curfews on five cities, including Baghdad and Mosul.
At least 10 people were killed, many burnt to death in their cars, and 25 wounded when the car bomb exploded in Baghdad, police and medics said.
Flames raged around one car with four children trapped inside after the blast ripped through a line of vehicles at the peak of the morning rush hour.
Two US helicopters were forced to make an emergency landing after taking small arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire, a military spokeswoman said, adding that there were no casualties.
She refused to provide further details, including the location of the incident.
Violence has raged in other Sunni strongholds since the battle for Fallujah began.
In the flashpoint city of Ramadi, 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Fallujah, medics said three people were killed, including a policeman and an attacker, and 17 people wounded during clashes between rebels and US that erupted from Wednesday evening.
The US military could not be immediately contacted for comment.
In the north of the country, masked rebels stormed into six Iraqi police stations in the city of Mosul, seizing weapons and torching buildings, according to an AFP correspondent in the city, a day after a curfew was imposed.
Even Allawi's family has become caught up in the mayhem when a gang in three cars abducted his elderly cousin, Ghazi Allawi, his wife and their daughter-in-law in Baghdad on Tuesday. The three were purportedly threatened them with death if the Fallujah campaign were not halted and all prisoners in Iraq freed.
11/11/2004 - 15:12 GMT - AFP