CASUALTIES: The Arabic satellite TV network al-Jazeera broadcast footage yesterday of what it believed was two dead British soldiers.
The soldiers were said to have been killed and captured in fighting around the town of Al Zubayr, 15 miles outside the second city of Basra, which has been the scene of heavy fighting.
The channel also broadcast footage of what it said was two captured Allied soldiers.
Al-Jazeera had described them as British, but later said it was not clear and they could have been American. It is the third time in four days that film of Coalition soldiers, captured or killed, has been shown on television.
The poor-quality amateur footage showed two bodies lying in a road next to what looked like a Land-Rover.
Two British soldiers are still missing after their Land-Rover was ambushed on Sunday by Iraqi forces with a rocket-propelled grenade in Al Zubayr. There was no immediate indication if the soldiers in the footage were these men.
The official total of dead and missing British troops is 20.
Official Iraqi media and government officials say 132 Iraqi civilians have been killed and 537 people have been wounded. But Baghdad hospital sources say close to 1,000 people have been wounded in the capital.
US military intelligence said yesterday around 1,000 Iraqi troops were killed in Najaf in battles over the past 72 hours but overall casualties among President Saddam Hussein's forces have not been established.
Media travelling with Coalition troops yesterday reported more than 100 Iraqi bodies seen on the road north of Nassiriya, and up to 25 near Kut.
The US military said 14 Americans have been killed in action. A further five were killed in helicopter accidents. Two were killed by fellow soldiers and two killed in road accidents. One was killed in a weapons mishap.-