12 April 2004	Monday	21 Safar 1425

FALLUJAH, Iraq, April 11: Civilians fled Fallujah on Sunday after an informal truce halted a week of fighting between US forces and guerillas in which hundreds of Iraqis died.

The truce was likely to be extended for another 12 hours until Monday, to allow negotiators of both sides to try and end fighting, according to a member of Iraq's Governing Council, Hashim al-Hassani.

Only sporadic gunfire crackled in the town on Sunday, but guerrillas shot down a US Apache attack helicopter just west of Baghdad airport and the US military said its two-man crew was killed.

Iraq's US administrator Paul Bremer said no terms had been imposed on rebels in Fallujah. Grabbing their chance, desperate families fled combat zones in the town of 300,000. Sunni fighters, who have been battling US Marines from street to street, remained inside.

Fifteen food trucks reached Fallujah with banners proclaiming they were a gift from the Baghdad stronghold of a Shia scholar who launched an anti-US revolt across Iraq a week ago.

It was the latest of several striking shows of Sunni-Shia solidarity against the US-led occupation elicited by Iraq's bloodiest week of violence since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

In Baghdad, witnesses said US troops used tanks to smash into the compound of a Sunni mosque in a night raid on the Adhamiya area, where gunmen fought the Americans on Saturday.

US forces have stirred a hornet's nest in Iraq by sparking a confrontation Moqtada Al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia while simultaneously cracking down on Sunni insurgents. The wave of hostage-taking is a symptom of rising hostility in both communities to a US-led administration that plans to hand power to an interim Iraqi government on June 30.

The Marines attacked Fallujah, a bastion of insurgency west of Baghdad, last week in response to the murder and mutilation of four American private security guards ambushed in the town.

The rebels want US forces to lift their siege and leave the town. The US military says Fallujah leaders must hand over the killers of the four Americans, and gunmen must surrender.

Bremer said US authorities were trying to "get the forces to stop firing, have the insurgents stop firing on the Marines" to allow a Governing Council delegation to go in. He told Fox TV it was vital that rebels did not emerge stronger from any truce.

Guerillas holding a US civilian said they would execute him unless the siege of Fallujah was lifted. Bremer told ABC that US officials had not had any contact with insurgents holding the American, who identified himself to a television crew as Thomas Hamill. "We will not negotiate over hostages," the US official told Fox TV.

Hostages freed: Nine foreign hostages held in Iraq have been released, a member of an Iraqi militia group and sources in the coalition forces said on Sunday. A videotape, showing the hostages, was aired by an Al Jazeera television in which a masked man was shown as saying: "We have released them in response to a call from the Muslim Clerics Association... After we were sure that they will not deal with the occupation forces again."

Three of the released hostages belonged to Pakistan, two from Turkey, one each from India, Nepal and the Philippines. Meanwhile, a British contractor, Gary Teeley, seized by a militia group in Nassiriya last week, was handed over to coalition forces on Sunday, officials said.

"He is in the hands of US and Italian forces in Nassiriya as we speak. We'll be making sure that he is flown out of the country and back to Britain as soon as possible," said a senior official of the coalition forces.

In London, a British Foreign Office spokesman said Teeley, who had been missing since last Monday, was "safe and well". Teeley, 37, is a consultant for a laundry firm and has worked extensively in the Middle East. -Agencies

8 US soldiers killed

BAGHDAD: Insurgents have killed eight US soldiers in various attacks in the past two days, the US military said in a statement on Sunday. Four 1st Armoured Division soldiers were killed in two attacks on April 9 in Baghdad, the statement said, while three 1st Infantry Division soldiers were killed near Tikrit, the same day. On April 10, a Marine was killed in the Al Anbar province. -Reuters