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Meanwhile, tribal leaders in Kut -- disgusted with the violence incited by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr -- have fought with his Mehdi Army and plan to hand the southern Iraqi city over to U.S. forces, a coalition source close to the situation told CNN on Friday.

The tribal leaders have seized Sadr's office in Kut and have called on U.S. troops to help them push the Mehdi Army fighters out of city, the source said.

A senior U.S. military official said U.S. forces are conducting offensive operations in Kut and Nasiriya and they expect to be able to announce sometime Friday that they've regained control of the two southern Iraqi cities.

Some 280 Iraqis have died in the fighting in the city, Fallujah city hospital director Rafie al-Issawi told the AP. He said 180 more have been killed elsewhere in the country, including Ramadi.

U.S. troops place the blame for many of the civilian deaths on the insurgents.
"We're facing an enemy that's unafraid to fight from behind women and children, from occupied apartment buildings, from protected sites,"a Marine officer said in Fallujah during a television report.

"To characterize their resistance as anything but kind of cowardly would be to give them more credit than they deserve," he said.