BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair today defended US tactics in the assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah, rejecting a legislator's assertion that the attack amounted to the "murder or mutilation of hundreds of women and children."

Disagreeing with the description, Blair said: "There is a situation in Fallujah where we have a large number of very well-armed former regime elements, and probably some outside terrorists as well .. and it is right that the American forces try to make sure that order is restored to that city.

"The people that have been killing civilians in Iraq are not actually the American soldiers," he added.

"They are people who through car bombs, suicide bombs, through attacks on innocent Iraqis as well as coalition forces who are causing that death and destruction totally unnecessarily."

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Opposition Conservative lawmaker Sir Peter Tapsell questioned the US tactics.

"Does the prime minister support the murder or mutilation of hundreds of women and children in Fallujah as an appropriate response to the savage murder of four American contractors?" said Tapsell, a member of the opposition Conservative party.

"It's not merely the murder of the innocent civilians but also the murder of, I think, some 19 Iraqi police as well," Blair said.

US air strikes overnight on positions held by Sunni rebels in the Iraqi city of Fallujah are "perfectly right and proper", British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Wednesday.

"I deeply regret any civilian deaths in Fallujah but it is necessary that order is restored and the Americans are trying to do that," Blair told parliament during his weekly question and answer period.

"If it is the case that American soldiers have been fired on, American soldiers are going to have to fire back and take action to ensure that those insurgents -- these former regime elements and terrorists -- can't disrupt the political process," he told the House of Commons.

"It is perfectly right and proper that they take action against those insurgents," he added.

United States aircraft and tanks pounded targets in the besieged Iraqi city of Fallujah on Tuesday, just hours after an American deadline expired for rebels to hand over their heavy weapons, witnesses said.

"I can hear more than 10 explosions every minute. Fires are lighting the night sky," one witness said as US forces blasted sections of the Golan district of the city, scene of heavy fighting between Marines and rebels on Monday.

"The earth is shaking under my feet," he said. Television pictures showed two large fires some 150m apart.

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United Nations special envoy in Iraq Lakhdar Brahimi, speaking to the Security Council as the battle raged, urged the US-led administration to bring the Fallujah crisis to a peaceful end.

"The Coalition Provisional Authority is well aware that, unless this standoff is brought to a resolution through peaceful means, there is great risk of a very bloody confrontation," he said.

"They know as well as - indeed, better than everyone else - that the consequences of such bloodshed could be dramatic and long-lasting."

Kindil says that allowing Iraqis to take a greater role in maintaining security would be critical to defusing the crisis. "From the very beginning it was clear American forces would not be able to maintain security," he said. "They don't know the people, the people don't know them and they don't know the country.. There is no trust between those two sides as there could be between the Iraqi forces and the people."

But the U.S. government has been cool to the SCIRI proposal. It plans to maintain its force of 135,000 after the political handover due June 30 but also control the new Iraqi Army it trained after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein..

Speaking on Fox News channel, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said control of Iraqi forces is necessary "because you have to have unity of command. You can't have two military forces operating independently of one another. So to some extent, they would yield some of their sovereignty to our military commanders."

That policy seems destined to result in more fighting and death in Iraq. In his sermon at the last Friday prayers in Najaf, Muqtada al-Sadr demanded an election before his Mehdi Army would consider surrendering arms. "If I agree with the law of the Americans and their followers, it will be as if I approve of them, and a man like me will never approve."

Overnight US airstrikes in Fallujah hit a vehicle and a building used by insurgents, a spokesman said at the main US Marine base just outside the flashpoint Iraqi city.

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The ceasefire agreed earlier this month was extended on Sunday, and officials of the US-led coalition said they planned to stage joint patrols of the city together with local police.

The patrols initially were scheduled to start on Tuesday, but US overseer in Iraq Paul Bremer said on Iraqi television they would start Thursday.

Marine officers on the ground said the decision was based on sensitivity for the birthday of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein's, which falls on Wednesday. They also said that there were no plans to patrol Jolan, a densely-packed residential area that is considered too much of a danger zone.

Camp Fallujah also came under mortar attack during the night, according to an AFP correspondent at the base, though no casualties were reported.

The base has often come under fire in the past, but US marines said Tuesday night's mortar attack was the first in about two weeks.

To the west of Baghdad, the besieged city of Fallujah was mostly quiet until nightfall, when at least one AC-130 Spectre gunship fired on the northern Jolan neighborhood, where a Marine was killed Monday.

Marine officials said their forces in the neighborhood were fired on at about 10 p.m., and the airstrike began half an hour later, sending the roar of 105mm cannon fire echoing across the city. Under the terms of a recent cease-fire in Fallujah, the Marines are permitted to return fire when attacked.

U.S. Marines have launched new air and ground attacks in Falluja, and President George W. Bush says his troops will do whatever it takes to eliminate guerrilla activity in the Iraqi city.

"Our military commanders will take whatever actions necessary to secure Falluja," Bush said told reporters in Washington on Wednesday, as U.S. helicopter gunships and jet aircraft pounded several districts across the Sunni bastion west of Baghdad.

The previous 24 hours saw the most devastating display of U.S. warplane firepower since American forces encircled Falluja three weeks ago in response to the killing of four American contractors and the mutilation of their bodies in the city.

Bush, seeking re-election in November with Iraq a burning campaign issue as U.S. troops suffer their bloodiest month, said there were "pockets of resistance" in the city but "most of Falluja is returning to normal".

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There were no reports of major civilian casualties in Falluja in the latest fighting, but the severity of the bombardment dismayed some residents.

"This attack shows the frustration in the ranks of American soldiers in Iraq and the American political defeat," said Ali Abdullah. "We have uncovered the treachery and barbarity of the U.S. army."

Heavy fighting broke out last night for the second day running in the Iraqi city of Falluja. US marines, joined by AC130 gunships, pounded the Golan neighbourhood of the city in what American military sources said was a response to firing by insurgents.

Television pictures showed two large fires burning in the Sunni-dominated city. Artillery and small arms fire could be heard, as well as loudspeakers calling firefighters into action.

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While American commanders indicated that they were keen to avoid a repeat of the intense fighting that swept Falluja in early April, UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi expressed dismay at the renewal of hostilities.

"There is little doubt that many lives have been lost and much suffering has been endured by civilians," he told a briefing at the UN in New York.

"You have also seen on the television screens, yesterday, images of yet another mosque which had taken a direct hit. Reports today of attacks from and on a mosque are a source of shock."

Unless a peaceful end was found to the fighting in Falluja, he said, "there is great risk of a very bloody confrontation".

The coalition, he added, "know as well as, indeed, better than everyone else, that the consequences of such bloodshed could be dramatic and long-lasting."

The place where the new dead lie in this city west of Baghdad was once a soccer stadium called the Falluja Sports Club.

But now, after more than three weeks of fighting between American marines and insurgents, it is known as the Falluja Martyrs Cemetery.

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On Tuesday afternoon, there were the sounds of continuing battle, despite a declared truce. The rattle of machine-gun fire and explosions that sounded like tank rounds could be heard in the distance.

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More room was being made for graves in the center of the stadium, where the turf had been tilled with trenches deep enough to stand in.

"There are still a lot of bodies out there," said Hamza, another gravedigger. "But we can't get them because of the fighting."

Some of the bodies were pulled out from under the rubble of bombed homes, said Iraqis at the cemetery. One grave was simply marked "hand." Another "fingers."

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It was clear who was in control of this neighborhood at the moment. The masked men demanded and were shown identification cards.

A short distance away, two Iraqi policemen and a civil defense patrolman sat in the main road.

One policeman, Walid Faiq, stood up from the curb. He said that, as a local resident of Falluja, "there was no difference" between him and the armed men deep inside the neighborhood's alley.

But unlike those men, he said, "We don't carry weapons."

He pointed to a sandbagged wall on the roof of a two-story building, which he said was an American sniper position. "Our job is just to keep the two sides apart as best as we can," he said.

Earlier in the day, a huge crowd of families, including black-shrouded women and children, had gathered along the highway trying to get back to their homes. Roughly a third of the city of 200,000 people are said to have fled during the fighting. Ten families were reportedly able to get into the city through another checkpoint early in the morning before all passage was ordered stopped.

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The first mortar round sounded at 8:28 a.m., and Army National Guard troops manning the main checkpoint near the cloverleaf on the highway leading west from Baghdad soon began taking down the welcoming signs and stretching a spiked barrier and coils of razor wire across the road.

Shortly before 10 a.m., an exasperated Lt. Col. Michael J. Lee ordered over a field telephone that no Iraqi families be allowed into the city. With that, a crowd of several thousand began drifting, then retreating eastward.

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A meeting between the marines and Falluja's mayor, Mahmoud Ibrahim, also went poorly.

The mayor told Colonel Lee that three sections of the city were beyond his control, and that the American-sponsored Iraqi police and security forces were afraid to go in. The untamed sectors - Jolan, Hayal Askeri and Shuhada - seemed to make up roughly half the city.

Privately, several Marine officers who have dealt with Mayor Ibrahim said he was heartily disliked by much of the public, although they gave him credit for courage in trying to resolve the situation. He had been mayor for the last few years under Saddam Hussein's government. The officers were somewhat uncertain how he had remained mayor, saying he seemed to have been chosen at some sort of a council.

Brahimi warned that fighting in cities like Najaf and Fallujah could have long-term consequences for the US-led coalition, which will hand over power to an interim Iraqi government on June 30.

"Unless this stand-off is brought to a resolution through peaceful means, there is great risk of a very bloody confrontation," he said late Tuesday.

Even as he spoke in the council chamber in New York, a US AC-130 Spectre gunship aircraft circled over a suspected insurgent position in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, and hammered it with 105 mm Howitzer rounds.

UN envoy Lakdhar Brahimi has urged the United States to avoid launching military actions in Fallujah and other Iraqi cities, warning of "dramatic" consequences, Xinhua reports.

"The security situation (in Iraq), above all else, was and remains extremely worrying," Brahimi told the Security Council, citing the standoff in Fallujah, the Shia uprising in southern Iraq and a general increase in violence in that country.

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For fear of high casualties among Iraqi civilians and on their own side, the US troops have avoided rolling into the city. A fragile ceasefire between Sunni insurgents and the US troops has been extended several times.