Eight hundred British troops have begun arriving at new bases near Baghdad from southern Iraq to free up American troops for an expected military campaign against insurgents in Fallujah and Ramadi.
In Fallujah on Friday, American warplanes bombed a suspected weapons site. Doctors report three people were killed and three wounded in the airstrike.
Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has said he will use force if necessary to subdue insurgents and foreign terrorists in the rebel cities.
Elsewhere, a senior provincial official (Aqil Hamed al-Adeli) was assassinated in Baquba, while car bombings in Mosul killed one civilian and injured five American soldiers.
And the deadline for the execution of a 24-year old Japanese hostage abducted by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi loyalists has passed with no word on the man's fate.