British ambulances ferried the casualties, who came under mortar fire Friday as they headed out over the Al-Zubair bridge, to field hospitals on the outskirts of the city.

"We went in there with ambulances to pick them up and we are now treating them," said British spokesman Major Will MacKinlay on Saturday.

Some of the casualties were taken to a small regimental aid post where they were treated for shrapnel injuries.

Captain Hugo Guthrie, in charge of a hospital inside a compound set up the Scottish Black Watch regiment outside Basra, said that medics were also treating Iraqi prisoners of war.

"We treated several groups of injured people, including civilians and a number of Iraqi prisoners of war," Guthrie said.

"Among the civilians were a number who were injured by mortar or artillery fire as they fled out the city and crossed the bridge."

Guthrie said locals had been deeply upset by their ordeal.

"The young husband of a lady we were treating for shrapnel injuries kept kissing my hand and saying 'thank you, thank you for helping my wife' He was crying his heart out, the poor man.

"He was very emotional and went round the rest of the medical team individually kissing hands and thanking everybody. His wife was fine. She had suffered four or five superficial flesh wounds."

The Black Watch attacked Iraqi militias on Friday as they saw the refugees who were heading out of town in their thousands coming under fire.

MacKinlay was unable to give figures for the number of civilian or Iraqi militia casualties but said that no British troops had been hurt in the exchanges.

After the Black Watch launched its assault, US F/A-18 fighter jets also targeted three Al Samoud missile launchers in an air strike near Basra, the US military said.

The US Navy jets launched the strike at around 1300 GMT Friday, using precision guided weapons to bomb the missile launchers, the US Central Command said in a statement from its air operations center in Saudi Arabia.

"The strike was carried out with precision-guided ordnance to continue to degrade Iraq's ability to strike coalition forces, the Iraqi people, or neighboring countries," it said.

The coalition had been hoping that Basra's mainly Shiite population would rise up against Saddam Hussein's rule which is dominated by Sunnis in Baghdad.

But it was clear that locals remained wary of voicing dissent towards the Iraqi strongman.

"We are leaving because we are afraid of Saddam," one woman covered in black told AFP as she fled the city.

"Do not say that to a journalist, we all love Saddam and cherish him in our hearts," a nervous neighbour cut her off as columns of black smoke rose behind her from the battered city and torched oil wells.

WAR.WIRE