FALLUJAH, Iraq (AFP) - US troops tackled Fallujah`s last tenacious insurgents but were still days away from completing major search operations, as the mutilated body of a Caucasian woman was found by marines.
With a convoy carrying aid for thirsty and hungry civilians in the rebel enclave still blocked by the military, US-led forces said that more than 1,200 insurgents had been killed in the assault launched late November 7.
Meanwhile, in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the country`s third largest, Iraqi and US troops moved in after days of unchecked lawlessness, with clashes erupting between rebels and security forces Sunday.
As US marines continued their slow, tense search of buildings in Fallujah, a senior officer warned that the operation would continue well into next week; belying the swiftness with which US-led troops first poured in.
"It is probably going to be another four to five days of clearing house to house," said Colonel Mike Shupp. "There is not going to be a stone unturned in the city."
With 25 marines killed, according to US figures, in the battle to take a city that is the symbol of Iraq`s protracted insurgency, marine commander Major General Richard Natonski said: "We have killed over 1,200" rebels.
None of the figures could be independently verified.
Iraq`s interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi authorised the attack to bring Fallujah to heel, as a lesson to insurgents elsewhere, and to bring more stability ahead of key elections planned for January.
On Saturday, national security advisor Qassem Daoud announced that the so-called Operation Fajr (Dawn) was accomplished and "only the malignant pockets remain that we are dealing with through a clean-up operation."
He acknowledged, however, that Iraq`s most wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose supporters had made Fallujah their base, and a top aide had slipped through their fingers.
But US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, on a trip to Panama, said that while US troops were present in much of the city, the mission was not over.
"Needless to say there still will be pockets of resistance and areas that will be difficult, so I don`t mean to suggest that it is concluded. It`s not, to be sure."
Despite being hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned, the insurgents in Fallujah have refused to surrender their stronghold without a fierce struggle.
Three marines were killed Saturday in an explosion as they entered a booby-trapped building, while another 13 were wounded in a firefight nearby, a marine officer said.
The latest deaths bring to at least 25 the number of US troops who have been killed in the fight for Fallujah. Five Iraqi soldiers have also died.
In the south of the city, where insurgents regrouped over the weekend, the butchered body of a blonde-haired Caucasian woman was found Sunday lying on a street.
"It is a female ... missing all four appendages, with a slashed throat and disemboweled, she has been dead for a while but only in this location for a day or two," said a Navy Corps hospital apprentice who had inspected the body.
Two foreign women have been abducted in Iraq and remain missing: Teresa Borcz, 54, a Pole, has blonde hair, and British aid worker Margaret Hassan, 59, has chestnut-coloured hair.
French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, meanwhile, said two French journalists kidnapped south of Baghdad nearly three months ago were thought to be in a "fairly safe" zone in Iraq.
The assessment was based on information from their driver found alive in Fallujah.
At Fallujah`s main hospital, aid from the Iraqi Red Crescent was still waiting as relief workers negotiated with US troops for access to residents.
The Muslim relief agency said it fears civilians are dying of starvation and a lack of medical equipment. Of the city`s 300,000 residents, as many as one-third were thought to have remained when the assault began.
"They are still in the hospital and they are trying to have the facility to distribute material in Fallujah but until now they have not been able to," said Ahmed Nasser, head of the Red Crescent`s disaster management unit.
But Health Minister Alaeddin Abdul Sahib Adwan said the fears of a humanitarian crisis were groundless and that only a small number of civilians had been wounded in the week-long battle, although he admitted he was unable to obtain information about residents in the thick of the fighting.
"The ministry of health is coordinating with the Iraqi military and the multinational forces in evacuating the civilian casualties, but so far the number has been very small," Adwan told AFP.
"We have about 20 civilian casualties," he said.
A further 400 civilians who were not in need of treatment have also been transported out of the city over the past 48 hours, he added.
Meanwhile, with the insurgents growing bolder by the day in Mosul, 370 kilometres (230 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraqi and US troops moved in and appeared to be regaining control, an AFP correspondent there said.
Clashes took place between rebels and Iraqi security forces in the centre of Mosul, with the two sides exchanging automatic gunfire and rockets. They were particularly heavy close to the police headquarters in the Zanjali area.
The Iraqi National Guard had deployed in several districts, as well as alongside the river Tigris and in the west of the city, he said. Two police stations were retaken in the centre and the north.
Elsewhere, US helicopter and tank fire blasted a building harbouring suspected insurgents near the restive city of Baiji, also north of the Iraqi capital, killing several rebels, a US military spokesman said.
Medical sources in the city said they had received 13 Iraqi dead and 26 wounded following clashes in the city and two US air attacks, including the one in Baiji and another in nearby Siniyah.
In the restive city of Ramadi, six Iraqis were killed and five wounded during clashes between gunmen and US troops, medics said. Rebels had deployed in force in the city after the start of the assault on nearby Fallujah.

11/14/2004 - 19:03 GMT - AFP