US-led forces backed by warplanes tightened their grip on the rebel stronghold of Samarra today, saying they had killed 125 militants in one of the largest offensives since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The two-day offensive to retake Samarra also resulted in the capture of 88 insurgents, the commanding general of the 1st Infantry Division said.
Major General John Batiste told CNNthat operations in the town would continue for several days.
Sporadic gunfire could be heard in the city centre, near a revered mosque, but otherwise the town was quiet two days after 5,000 US and Iraqi troops launched the
operation, the first in a campaign to retake all rebel areas.
More than 80 bodies were brought in to Samarra's hospital yesterday, and five more today. Others were left in the streets, with health workers too busy to collect them. The Iraqi Red Crescent said it had evacuated 25 wounded people late last night, including a young girl who later died.
But underlining the problems faced by Iraq's government and its US allies as they try to win over an often restive population, an Iraqi Islamist group beheaded an Iraqi contractor it said was working for US forces, an Internet video showed.
As well as Samarra US forces will have to retake Fallujah and Ramadi, west of Baghdad, and several areas of Baghdad, including the Shi'ite district of Sadr City, if the nation is to be pacified before elections.