US military officials said today that troops had now "occupied" the entire city of Fallujah and there were no more major concentrations of insurgents still fighting after nearly a week of intense urban combat.
The US Defence Secretary Mr Donald Rumsfeld said US-led troops were now operating in much, if not all, of Falluja, although pockets of resistance remained.
A US officer said Fallujah was "occupied but not subdued." Artillery and airstrikes also were halted after nightfall to prevent mistaken attacks on US and Iraqi forces who had taken up positions throughout the city.
Iraqi officials declared the operation to free Fallujah of militants was "accomplished" but acknowledged the two most wanted figures in the city - Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Sheik Abdullah al-Janabi - had escaped.
Up to 1,200 insurgents and 24 US soldiers have been killed in the offensive against Fallujah. Rebel attacks elsewhere - especially in the northern city of Mosul - have forced the Americans to shift 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 40 miles west of Baghdad.
Military activity also surged along the Euphrates River valley well to the north and west of Baghdad, with clashes reported in Qaim on the Syrian border and in Hit and Ramadi, nearer to the capital.
But US officers said that resistance had not been entirely subdued and that it still could take several days of fighting to clear the final pockets.
A series of thunderous explosions rocked central Baghdad after sunset today, and sirens wailed in the fortified Green Zone, which houses major Iraqi government offices and the US Embassy. There was no immediate explanation for the blasts, but the Ansar al-Sunnah Army later claimed responsibility for firing several rockets at the zone.
The claim's authenticity could not be verified. A car bomb exploded on the main road to Baghdad airport, and there was fighting near the Education Ministry in the heart of the capital.
At least four people were killed and 29 wounded, police said, during a US airstrike on rebels and clashes today in the Abu Ghraib suburb of western Baghdad. One Iraqi was killed and 10 wounded in fighting between US troops and insurgents in the northern city of Tal Afar.
The drive against remaining insurgent hold-outs in southern Fallujah was aimed to eradicate the last major concentration of fighters at the end of nearly a week of air and ground assaults. US and Iraqi forces claim to control 80 per cent of the city.
"We are just pushing them against the anvil," said US Colonel Michael Formica, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division's 2nd Brigade. "It's a broad attack against the entire southern front."
US and Iraqi forces also have begun moving against insurgent sympathisers among Iraq's hard-line Sunni religious leadership, arresting at least four prominent clerics and raiding offices of religious groups that had spoken out against the Fallujah assault.
US officials said they hoped the latest attack would finish off the last pocket of significant resistance in Fallujah. Next was a planned house-to-house clearing operation to find booby-traps, weapons and guerrillas still hiding in the rubble.
The US command withdrew one battalion of the 25th Infantry Division in Fallujah and returned it to Mosul after insurgents attacked police stations, bridges and government buildings Thursday in clashes that killed 10 Iraqi troops and one US soldier.