The US military's ground and air assault of Fallujah has gone quicker than expected, with the entire city occupied after six days of fighting, the Marine commander who planned the offensive said yesterday. The military said 31 Americans have been killed in the siege.

　　US Marine Major General Richard Natonski said he and other commanders learned from April's failed three-week Marine assault on Fallujah, which was called off by US President George W. Bush's administration after a worldwide outcry over civilian deaths.

　　This time, the military sent in six times as many troops and 20 types of aircraft. Troops also faked attacks before the assault to confuse enemy fighters.

　　"Maybe we learned from April," Natonski said in an interview. "We learned we can't do it piecemeal. When we go in, we go all the way through. We had the green light this time and we went all the way."

　　Natonski spoke during a visit to the 1st Cavalry Division's 2nd Brigade, the unit charged with isolating Fallujah.

　　More than 1,200 insurgents have been killed during the operation, he said.

　　The offensive has killed at least 31 American troops and six Iraqi soldiers, said US Lieutenant General John Sattler, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. The number of injured Americans was "up in the high 200s," although some have returned to duty already, Sattler said.

　　Rebel attacks elsewhere - especially in the northern city of Mosul - have forced the US military to shift its troops away from Fallujah.

　　Exploiting the redeployment, insurgents stepped up attacks in areas outside Fallujah, including a bombing that killed two US Marines on the outskirts of the former rebel bastion 65 kilometers west of Baghdad.

　　Yesterday, Marines and Army units were still battling gritty bands of defenders scattered in buildings and bunkers across the Sunni Muslim stronghold. Behind them, Iraqi troops were enmeshed in the painstaking task of clearing weapons and fighters from every room of Fallujah's estimated 50,000 buildings.

　　US forces now occupy - but have yet to subdue - the entire city.

　　It still could take several days of fighting to clear the final pockets of resistance, the military said.

　　Marines were expected to reopen the bridge where the bodies of two American contractors killed by militants were strung up in March, sparking the earlier US siege.

　　"This is a big event for us," said Major Todd Des Grosseilliers. "It's symbolic because the insurgents closed the bridge and we are going to reopen it."

　　Also, Marines in Fallujah found the mutilated body of what they believe was a Western woman. The body was lying in the street.

　　A Marine officer speaking on condition of anonymity said he was "80 percent sure" it was a Western woman. Two foreign women were kidnapped last month - Margaret Hassan, 59, the director of CARE International in Iraq and Pole Teresa Borcz Khalifa, 54, a longtime resident of Iraq.

　　In central Buhriz, 40 kilometers northeast of Baghdad, demonstrators marched to protest the Fallujah offensive and denounce Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi.

　　The demonstrators, estimated by police to number about 70, carried banners calling Allawi a "thug" and "traitor."

　　"Allawi, Fallujah will be your tomb!" some chanted. "You are a coward, an American agent!"

　　In Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, militants attacked two police stations, killing at least six Iraqi National Guards and wounding three others, Iraqi officials said. One insurgent was killed and three others were wounded, they said. Iraqi security forces regained control of both stations, witnesses said.

　　(The Associated Press)