Extra troops for Iraq

The US is preparing to send more troops to Iraq if the situation there spirals further out of control, a Central Command official said today.

President Bush has opened a second front in the country - targeting an extreme Shia Muslim leader as well as trying to pacify Sunni militants.

Now commanders have been asked to find reinforcements as American forces prepare to fight fire with fire.

A warrant was issued last night for the arrest of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Sadr after two days of violence by his supporters which killed nine coalition soldiers and at least 52 Iraqis.

The US responded yesterday by calling in airstrikes to attack targets in Baghdad for the first time since its fall a year ago.

American troops today also began an offensive to "pacify" Falluja, part of the Sunni Triangle west of Baghdad. The city has been surrounded by thousands of US Marines and Iraqi troops in tanks and armoured vehicles, ready for a "massive response" to the attacks that saw four Americans killed, mutilated and hanged last week.

A Central Command official at the Pentagon said: "There is an obvious potential for more demonstrations and more violence. We asked our staff to look at what forces might be available in quickresponse mode."

But the unnamed official said the request had been made only "as a matter of planning" and the US military had "adequate forces" in Iraq.

"We always plan worse-case scenarios," he said. "There are currently about 134,000 US troops in Iraq as part of the 155,000-strong coalition force.

"But clearly if this thing got out of control we would have to start looking at the number of forces that we have."

Many of Iraq's majority Shia Muslims, repressed under Saddam Hussein, welcomed last year's US-led invasion. Attacks on coalition forces were largely carried out by Sunni insurgents.

However, Mr Sadr has become an increasingly outspoken opponent of the occupation, and protests were triggered by the closure of his al-Hawza newspaper a week ago on the grounds that it was inciting violence.

The US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, said that Mr Sadr and his followers were effectively outlaws.

But Mr Sadr responded by saying he was "proud" to be considered a target.

"We don't fear death, and martyrdom gives us dignity from God," he said in a statement.

He is holed up in a mosque in Kufa, south of Baghdad, surrounded by armed supporters who swear to defend him to the death.

Meanwhile, President Bush is coming under increasing pressure to persuade Americans that his Iraq policy could work.

Prominent Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy has called the war Mr Bush's Vietnam. His remarks were dismissed by Republicans but the most recent opinion poll seems to suggest that, on the subject of Iraq, public opinion is shifting rapidly away from the White House.

Mr Bush remained defiant, however, and said last night that the US was committed to handing over sovereignty to Iraqis on 30 June.