In Abu Ghraib on the western outskirts of Baghdad a car bomb exploded outside a police station wounding at least nine people, police said. Iraqi police and security forces have been repeatedly targeted by guerrilla bomb attacks.

The US “precision strike” was the latest in a series of almost daily attacks in Falluja trying to crush Zarqawi’s network, which has claimed responsibility for many of Iraq’s bloodiest suicide bombings and for killing foreign captives. Earlier this month, Zarqawi’s group killed American contractors Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley, after US forces and the Iraqi government refused a demand to release women held in the country’s jails.

The group says it will also kill British captive Kenneth Bigley, 62, snatched along with Armstrong and Hensley by gunmen who raided their house in Baghdad two weeks ago. On Wednesday, new footage was released showing a haggard and distressed Bigley pleading for his life as he squatted chained in a cage, dressed in an orange jumpsuit of the kind associated with Muslims held by US troops at Guantanamo Bay.

Offensive planned

In barely audible comments, Bigley said British prime minister Tony Blair was not doing enough to free him: “Tony Blair is a liar. He doesn’t care about me. I’m just one person.” Blair has insisted Britain will not negotiate with kidnappers, but said that if they contacted him he would listen.

“They’ve made no attempt to have any contact with us at all. If they did make contact, it would be something we would immediately respond to,” Blair told reporters. “I don’t think we can take any hope from anything until we know exactly what the intentions of these people are,” Blair said. “They’re not in contact with us, it’s impossible for us to make contact with them.”

In Bangkok, Bigley’s Thai wife Sombat called on Blair to do more. “Tony Blair could help him hugely,” she told Reuters. “He is waiting for Tony Blair to say something and do something.” Doctors at Falluja’s hospital said at least three people were killed and eight wounded by the latest US attack. The US military says it tries to minimise civilian casualties. “Several intelligence sources reported that Zarqawi terrorists were using the safe-house at the time of the strike to plan attacks against Iraqi citizens and Multinational Forces,” the US military said in a statement.

“Significant secondary explosions were observed during the impact indicating a large cache of illegal ordnance was stored in the safe house.” US marines pulled out of Falluja after weeks of fighting in April that killed hundreds of Iraqis, and handed over responsibility for security to an Iraqi force that has since collapsed. The city is now run by insurgents.

The US military says that with the help of Iraqi forces it will retake rebel strongholds like Falluja, Ramadi, Samarra and the Baghdad neighbourhoods of Sadr City and Haifa Street by the end of the year so elections can go ahead in January. Iraq’s defence minister told Reuters on Wednesday the offensive to retake these areas could come as early as October.

Over the past six months more than 100 foreign hostages have been seized in Iraq. Most were later freed but around 30 have been killed. Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, two French journalists seized last month, are among those still being held. Philippe Brett, a self-appointed mediator who says he has met the captive Frenchmen, said this week he had agreed a deal to secure their release.

But the French government has reacted with caution to the reports, and said Brett was acting independently. In Italy, national rejoicing at the release of two female aid workers held hostage for three weeks has been tempered by controversy over reports a $1 million ransom was paid. Iraqi government officials said paying a ransom would only encourage more hostage-taking.

CONSEQUENCE OF HOSTAGE CRISIS

<B>Labour threatened in by-election in Hartlepool</B>

• The hostage crisis has eclipsed Blair’s efforts to switch the focus to domestic policy at the conference in Brighton, designed as a springboard for a campaign to win a third term at a national election expected in May 2005. The conference ends yesterday with a potentially embarrassing debate for Blair over whether to withdraw British troops from Iraq. Government policy will not be affected but the strength of anti-war feeling within Labour ranks will be laid bare. In another test for Blair, voters in the northeastern town of Hartlepool, a strong Labour seat, began voting yesterday for a new member of parliament. A big swing to the opposition could humiliate Labour. Opinion polls say Labour is poised to secure a third term at next year’s expected national election. But anger over the war has savaged Blair’s public trust ratings and could erode his party’s massive parliamentary majority. The Bigley crisis has underlined how Blair’s future and Labour’s performance remain inextricably bound to Iraq.

<B>Andrew Marshall</B>