On one of the deadliest days since the new government took over, the six Iraqi national guardsmen were killed and four others wounded, security and medical sources said, as they guarded a pipeline south of Baghdad.

"Five dead bodies were brought in here, comprising one lieutenant and four soldiers, as well as five wounded people, three of whom were seriously hurt," said Haydar Sabah, a doctor at a hospital in Mahmudiyah, 30 kilometersmiles) south of Baghdad.

He said the injuries were consistent with a hand grenade attack. A national guard commander said the soldiers were guarding a pipeline by the small town of Latifiyah which has been a target of repeated rebel attacks.

One of the five wounded died later at the capital's Yarmuk Hospital, another medical source said.

A US marine died after an attack west of Baghdad, while a British soldier sustained minor injuries in a bomb attack on a military convoy in southern Basra.

"A marine assigned to 1st Marine Expeditionary Force died of wounds received in action yesterday (Friday) in the Al-Anbar province while conducting security and stability operations," the US military said Saturday.

The marines have lost seven men in five days in operations around Al-Anbar, from where US officials suspect alleged Al-Qaeda ally Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi is operating.

An Iraqi policeman was also killed in an attack on a traffic control point in the northern city of Mosul on Friday, US-led forces said.

In a message posted on the Internet, al-Qaeda-linked group Ansar al-Sunna said they had decapitated US Marine Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun.

"You will soon see the video," said the message.

Hassoun, a Lebanese American, went missing June 21 near the town of Fallujah, a focus of resistance to the US-led forces in Iraq.

Last Sunday, satellite news channel Al-Jazeera broadcast a tape from a group threatening to behead him unless all detainees in US-led coalition prisons in Iraq were freed.

In a sign of political progress, radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr told the interim government through a delegation that he was willing to disarm his militia, Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi told US television.

Sadr "is looking for an amnesty. He is looking to be part of the political process. He is willing...to dismantle the Jaysh al-Mahdi army ... or the militias that he has formed," Allawi told ABC News in an interview to be broadcast Sunday.

Allawi also said he hoped Arab nations would help protect Iraq.

"We do want to expand and get troops from various countries, especially Arab and Islamic countries," the interim premier said.

Meanwhile, an official at the oil terminal in Basra, the country's main pumping site, said exports had fallen from 84,000 barrels per hour to 40,000 since the pipeline was breached.

It was not immediately clear if the pipeline had been sabotaged or had sprung a leak. The rupture was at the site of one of two sabotage attacks last month which effectively halted Iraqi exports for almost a week.

"I can confirm the pipeline was breached. The cause was unknown," a British military spokesman said, adding that repairs and investigations were continuing.

World oil prices soared last month when the two pipelines pumping crude to two terminals in the Gulf were both shut down by attacks. Iraq's northern exports had already been crippled by saboteurs.

In an effort to thwart attacks, the interim government could "very shortly" announce emergency measures, the Iraqi deputy prime minister for national security, Barham Saleh, said in an interview with Al-Iraqiya television broadcast late Friday.

"This law will give the government the capability of imposing emergency laws in specific areas and for set periods to deal with terrorist threats," he said.

More than 400 people died in Iraq in a spate of car bombings, suicide attacks and raids last month in the run-up to the handover of power on June 28.

Meanwhile, deposed dictator Saddam Hussein's first court appearance on Thursday to hear charges of crimes against humanity continued to reverberate across the country and region as his legal team said it had been joined by a daughter of Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi.

"Dr Aisha Kadhafi is henceforth part of our team as she requested. I have sent her a letter confirming her retention as part of the team," lawyer Mohammed al-Rashdan told AFP in Amman.

Rashdan said the team, which has so far been denied entry into Iraq let alone access to its client, had renewed its request with both Iraqi legal and US military authorities.

A group of Kuwaiti lawyers said they had formed a committee to "represent the Kuwaiti people" at Saddam's trial.

Iraqi forces invaded the oil-rich emirate in August 1990, triggering the first Gulf war in which US-led forced drove Iraq out of Kuwait seven months later.

All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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