US warns Fallujah rebels time is running out

Iraqis in Basra vented their rage yesterday at the British occupiers they blame for suicide bombings that killed 68 people, while United States coalition forces warned insurgents in Fallujah that they had only days to surrender their weapons.

As hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Basra, a South African security guard was shot dead in Baghdad, and tension remained high in both the Shiite south and Sunni Muslim strongholds.

US General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Washington may have to dispatch more troops to counter the growing unrest, less than 10 weeks before the US-led coalition is due to hand power over to Iraqis.

Three hostages - two Swiss and an Israeli Arab - were freed from captivity yesterday, a day after a Dane was confirmed as the second hostage murdered in the series of abductions to hit Iraq.

The US-led coalition blamed Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network for the co-ordinated Basra bombings, whose victims included 20 schoolchildren.

"It's got all the hallmarks," said a senior US official. "It was suicidal, it was spectacular and it was symbolic."

But angry supporters of firebrand Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Sadr marched through Basra blaming the suicide attacks on the British troops who control southern Iraq.

A spokesman for the cleric, wanted by the US forces for murder, said he had evidence British troops were involved in the bombings of police installations in and around Basra. Captain Hisham Hallawi, a spokesman for the British forces, told CNN the accusation was "completely untrue".

* Those responsible for the latest Riyadh suicide attack will "burn in hell", says Saudi Arabia's top cleric.

Five people, including two senior police officers and an 11-year-old girl, were killed in the attack on the administrative building of the General Security, in addition to a suicide bomber who police said died at the scene.

Grand Mufti Abdul-Aziz al-Sheik, the kingdom's highest religious authority, condemned the attack by Muslims on fellow Muslims "as one of the greatest sins".

* US authorities have announced in Baghdad that some senior Iraqi officials purged after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein will be restored to duties.

The review could allow some former members of Saddam's Baath Party to join an interim Iraqi Government being put together by the United Nations, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

There has been widespread criticism that the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council had gone too far in excluding skilled former senior Baath members.

Herald Feature: Iraq