The US military said it detained a senior member of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's network and five other rebels during a pre-dawn raid in the Sunni Muslim bastion west of Baghdad which has been the focus of near-nightly air strikes in the hunt for the Jordanian-born militant.

"Due to a surge in the number of Zarqawi associates who have been captured or killed by multinational strikes and other operations, the (captured) member had moved up to take a critical position as a Zarqawi senior leader," the military said in a statement.

The wife of the man, identified as Hamid Fayed al-Jumaili, said he was a farmer and that he was arrested along with his two sons and three friends by US troops who descended on their home in Al-Hussay on the southern edge of Fallujah.

"They came in helicopters and armoured vehicles," she said.

Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi last week ordered Fallujah residents to hand over Zarqawi or face invasion, scuttling negotiations that had been going on for over two weeks between the government and community leaders over the redeployment of Iraqi forces in the city.

But Defence Minister Hazem Shaalan hinted Saturday that dialogue may prevail over bombs and guns.

"We have restarted the dialogue and God willing we will achieve positive results," he told reporters.

"Yesterday I spoke with one of the negotiators and on Thursday I spoke with Sheikh Khaled (Hammoud, another negotiator), so dialogue continues."

US and Iraqi officials believe Fallujah has become the central hub for Zarqawi and his men, whose Tawhid wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War) group has claimed some of the deadliest attacks to scar the country since last-year's US-led invasion.

They include most recently the beheading this month of 11 members of Iraq's security forces and a suicide car bombing in Baghdad that left more than 30 children dead.

A doctor said a family of five was caught up in overnight fighting between rebels and US forces when their house was hit.

"We have received one dead man, a father, and four wounded -- his wife and three children," said Doctor Ali Hayad, from the Fallujah's general hospital.

A US military spokesman said on Friday that heavy artillery was used after marines on patrol were attacked with small arms and mortars from inside Fallujah.

"Heavy calibre machine guns and anti-tank weapons were directed at houses insurgents were using as defensive positions. No air support was used," the spokesman said.

An AFP correspondent inside Fallujah said loud explosions were heard in the city's Shuhada and Sinai neighbourhoods.

Citing intelligence sources, the US military claimed that Zarqawi followers had started to move out of the centre of the city to outlying areas due to the relentless barrage of air strikes in recent weeks.

"Multinational forces urge the people of Fallujah to continue to support coalition efforts by providing information on the locations of Zarqawi associates," it said in a statement.

Like Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Zarqawi has a 25-million-dollar US bounty on his head.

His group recently pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda in an unverified statement, the first time the group has purportedly linked itself to bin Laden's network.

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