US forces shelled insurgent holdouts in Fallujah and deadly bomb blasts hit several cities in Iraq on Thursday, as a report by marine intelligence warned the insurgency would grow despite massive offensives to crush the insurgents.
US-led troops engaged in sporadic battles against insurgents in Fallujah after launching a major assault to wrest the Sunni Muslim stronghold west of Baghdad away from insurgents 10 days ago.
Shelling continued on the southern outskirts of the city, an AFP photographer said, even after a US marine officer had declared Wednesday that the "the battle is over."
Iraqi volunteers and US troops were collecting scores of corpses littering the battered city while the Iraqi Red Crescent said 150 families remained stranded.
But US marine intelligence officials have issued a report warning that any significant withdrawal of troops from Fallujah would strengthen the insurgency, The New York Times said.
The assessment, distributed to senior marine and army officers in Iraq, also said that despite the heavy fighting, the insurgents would continue to increase in number, carrying out attacks and fomenting unrest.
"The enemy will be able to effectively defeat the marines' ability to accomplish its primary objectives of developing an effective Iraqi security force and setting the conditions for successful Iraqi elections."
Military officials in Iraq and Washington disputed the report's findings, saying they represented only the "worst-case assessment" and that there would be no pullout of US troops from the city.
The raid on Fallujah, part of an attempt at reclaiming key lawless enclaves across the country ahead of January elections, has been the largest military operation in Iraq since the March 2003.
As fighting wound down in Fallujah, Iraqi commandos backed by US troops were set to storm insurgent stronghold in the northern city of Mosul, where US-led forces are trying to clear insurgents who overran police stations last week.
Five Iraqi troops were wounded in a powerful blast in the west of the town, US military officials said.
The military operations came as more deadly violence shook Iraq a day after at least 23 people killed in fighting and a bomb attack in Sunni Muslim hotspots.
Two Iraqis were killed in a car bombing outside a police station in Baghdad and another two were killed in an explosion in the northern oil centre of Kirkuk.
Meanwhile, the United States became the latest nation to condemn the apparent murder of Margaret Hassan, the head of CARE International's Iraq operations who was seized by unknown attackers on October 19 while on her way to work.
"We strongly condemn the abduction and murder of this prominent humanitarian," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said in a statement. "Her death is a great loss to the Iraqi people and the world."
If her death is confirmed, she is believed to be the first foreign female hostage to have been murdered in Iraq, and the second British hostage.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard backed away from an earlier statement in parliament that the mutilated body of a woman found in Fallujah appeared to be that of Hassan.
Howard did say there was every indication that Hassan was the woman who appeared in a video received by Al-Jazeera Tuesday showing an armed man shooting a blindfolded woman in the head.
The body of a blonde-haired woman with her legs and arms cut off and throat slit was found Sunday lying on a street in Fallujah. It has not been identified.
Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, meanwhile, voiced his concern to the US military after footage of a US marine killing a wounded Iraqi in a Fallujah mosque was broadcast on television channels worldwide.
The incident shocked Arab television audiences and the pictures dealt a fresh blow to the image of the US-led forces in Iraq. The marines said that the man involved has been withdrawn from the battlefield pending the results of the investigation.
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