MOSUL, Iraq (AFP) - US and Iraqi forces backed by aircraft swept into the northern Iraqi city of Mosul to secure police stations and restore order as insurgents in Fallujah fought US-led troops to the death.
The new operation to reclaim control of a city that had descended into lawlessness came as the US military was hit by claims that one of its troops shot dead a wounded, unarmed man during its assault on Fallujah.
About 1,200 US troops moved into Mosul, their biggest operation in the flashpoint city in recent times, striking back at groups of rebel fighters who over-ran police last week and seized control of police stations.
"The operation has been launched," said one military officer, Stuart Williams. "Two battalions are sweeping from the west side to the east."
With combat helicopters and warplanes buzzing overhead, the military targeted isolated pockets of insurgents that who it said were continuing to operate in the mainly Sunni Muslim city, 370 kilometres (230 miles) north of Baghdad.
On Monday, Iraq's interior ministry said seven police and 30 rebels were killed in clashes in Mosul on Sunday, including one incident in which a policeman was dragged from his hospital bed and hacked by insurgents.
As the assault in Fallujah entered its second week, sporadic bursts of gunfire crackled through southern districts of the one-time insurgent bastion where the rebels were trying to regroup.
"Very few have given up," said Colonel Michael Regner, chief of operations of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. "They are fighting to the death, and they're making it difficult on marines and soldiers."
But despite clashes with groups of up to a dozen rebels, Regner said the marines had accomplished all their objectives. "We can go anywhere we want in that city."
Meanwhile the military said it was investigating claims that a marine shot dead an unarmed wounded man as he lay in a Fallujah mosque, after pictures of the incident were broadcast on US television stations.
The First Marine Division said it wanted to determine whether the marine, who has been taken off duty, acted in self-defence in the incident on Saturday or violated military law.
A still from the video, filmed by an NBC cameraman embedded with the marines, showed a marine standing above a figure slumped against a wall aiming his rifle at the man's body.
"He's dead now," one marine is heard shouting, after a clatter of gunfire.
While the city is effectively under US and Iraqi control, the military has yet to declare the end of the largest operation since the war to oust former leader Saddam Hussein last year.
At least 39 US soldiers have been killed and 275 wounded so far in Operation Dawn, while at least five Iraqi troops and more than 1,200 insurgents have also died, according to the US military. There has been no independent confirmation of the casualty toll.
The Fallujah assault has also raised fears about a humanitarian disaster with tens of thousands of residents forced to flee, while the plight of the unknown number of civilians who stayed behind remained uncertain.
US troops have prevented a Red Crescent aid convoy from entering Fallujah, a city of some 300,000 civilians in normal times, saying it was too dangerous.
Civilians were eating dates and any left over canned food and said that fighters had promised to give them something to eat but were desperately short of supplies themselves, an AFP correspondent in Fallujah said.
In an audiotape posted on an Internet site, a man claiming to be Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq's most wanted man, exhorted insurgents around the country to rise up against US-led forces, brace for new battles and attack oil pipelines.
Saboteurs blew up an oil and a gas pipeline in the northern Iraqi region of Kirkuk, with fires still raging but firefighters were unable to tackle them as they were already caught up fighting four oil wells that were set ablaze over the weekend.
But Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, was calm with US troops out on patrol. On Monday, US-led forces in the city battled with up to 150 insurgents, killing at least 21 of them, according to William Chlebowski, the acting US commander.
Meanwhile an AFP journalist saw 18 bodies, some decapitated and wearing the uniforms of the Iraqi national guard laid out in a deserted area close to the viscously dangerous town of Latifiyah, to the south of Baghdad.
In the capital, US troops arrested the deputy head of Iraq's interim parliament, Nassir Ayef, a spokesman from his Iraqi Islamic Party said.
The spokesman suggested Ayef's arrest was linked to "pressure exerted on the Islamic Party because of its nationalist position regarding events in Iraq."
The Islamic Party, a Sunni movement, quit the government last week in protest at the invasion of Fallujah.

11/16/2004 - 16:15 GMT - AFP