Wednesday 24 November 2004 - US-led forces swept hotspots south of Baghdad on Wednesday in a push to capture the area before key January polls.

The launch of the huge operation on Tuesday came as the international community threw its weight behind the tight timetable for Iraq's first post-Saddam Hussein elections.

In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the United States would add an unspecified number of troops to its forces in Iraq and beef up Iraqi forces ahead of the 30 January vote.

Some 5000 American, British and Iraqi forces took part in Operation Plymouth Rock that began with raids on villages north of the city of Hilla, the capital of the province of Babylon, the US military said.

The force looked set on Wednesday to make its way northwards to areas blocking access to the capital.

Towns such as Latifiya, Yusufiya, Mahmudiya and Iskandriya lie inside the area where anti-US fighters have carried out strings of attacks in recent months.

The operation came hot on the heels of a massive assault on Falluja, the largest since last year's US-led invasion.

Falluja assault

Falluja had been under Iraqi resistance control since April and its recapture was seen as essential to organising the promised US-sponsored January elections.

Most of Falluja's 300,000 inhabitants had fled the city before the assault began 8 November, but fighting is still ongoing and humanitarian needs inside the city remain unknown.

An Iraqi Red Crescent team set off from Baghdad for Falluja but it was unclear how much access it would be granted to the devastated city.

Iraq was meanwhile pressing ahead with preparations for the elections.

More than 200 Iraqi political parties have been approved for participation in the polls, electoral commission chief Abd al- Husain al-Hindawi said.

With the deadline for presenting full electoral lists only a week away, parties and organisations were in the final stages of discussions to form alliances before the official launch of the campaign on 15 December.

In January, Iraqis are set to elect 275 deputies to a national assembly, as well as 51 members of the Baghdad provincial council and 41 members for each of 17 other regional councils.

In a separate incident, gunmen opened fire on Iraqi National Guard soldiers in the northern city of Kirkuk late on Tuesday, killing one guardsman and a civilian, the US military said.

In a statement, the military said National Guard soldiers had stopped to help the civilian with his car when gunmen drove past and fired at them. One guardsman was also wounded.

And in an attack in Baghdad on Wednesday morning, a bomber detonated his car near a US convoy on the airport road, but only the bomber was killed and no troops were wounded, police at the scene said.

Aljazeera + Agencies