US marines poised to storm Iraqi cities

Hajlik, deputy commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said the expected assault would involve Iraqi forces. US planes launched almost daily air strikes on what the military says are safe houses used by a network of Iraqi and foreign fighters led by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The latest air raid on Friday killed three Iraqi men and wounded three more civilians, hospital officials said.

A Japanese hostage taken in Iraq has been killed, Kyodo news agency said, citing information obtained by the Japanese government. Zarqawi’s militant group said in an Internet video on Wednesday, it would behead 24-year-old Shosei Koda within 48 hours if Japan did not withdraw its 550 non-combat troops from Iraq. Japan rejected the demand.

Meanwhile, a British soldier died in a road accident as the Black Watch regiment rebased to ‘‘the triangle of death’’ southwest of Baghdad to free up US units for the Falluja offensive.

A previously unknown Islamist group said on Thursday it had kidnapped a Polish-Iraqi woman, demanding Poland take its troops out of Iraq. Warsaw said its contingent would stay.

A car bomb blew up near a US convoy in southern Mosul, killing an Iraqi civilian and wounding two US soldiers. Three US soldiers were wounded when a bomb blast hit their Humvee on a highway between Mosul and Tel Afar. —Reuters