"The American forces based in the institute of technology in Huwaijah have left today to five kilometres (three miles) outside the town, near Bakara," a village between Huwaijah and al-Riyadh, said Atallah Iskandar Al-Juburi, a municipal council member.

According to him, the redeployment was due to "the intensity of anti-American attacks by supporters of deposed president Saddam Hussein or extremist Islamist movements."

More than a thousand inhabitants of the Huwaijah area are being detained by US forces, "increasing the exasperation of the local population," Iraqi attorney Hadi al-Qorra, responsible for Huwaijah's prisoners in US custody, told AFP.

Huwaijah is situated in the Sunni triangle, a swathe of territory stretching north of Baghdad to Saddam's hometown of Tikrit where most anti-coalition attacks outside the capital occur.

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