While anti-war demonstrations were staged across the country, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon and Prince Andrew, Queen Elizabeth's second son, attended a ceremony to mark the return of ten dead soldiers at a Royal Air Force base in Brize Norton, west England.

A C-17 military cargo aircraft carrying their bodies touched down at the base just after midday (1200 GMT).

With an air force flag flying at half mast, a Royal Marines band played as each coffin was solemnly brought from the aircraft to a waiting hearse before being driven to a temporary mortuary.

Eight of the dead British servicemen were killed when the US Sea Knight helicopter they were aboard crashed south of the Kuwaiti border on March 21.

The other two bodies were those of the crew of the British GR4 Tornado warplane which was hit near the Kuwaiti border by a US Patriot missile last Sunday.

According to official figures, 23 British soldiers have been killed in total since the start of the US-led war on March 20 -- 14 in helicopter accidents, four in combat, and five as a result of "friendly fire".

In London, the defence ministry said it had apologised to the families of two soldiers after Blair, Washington's staunchest ally in the US-led war, publicly denounced their "execution" by Iraqi forces before the men's relatives had been told.

Blair made his remark during a press conference after a summit with US President George W. Bush Thursday at Camp David near Washington.

But the family of one of the dead soldiers accused the prime minister of "lying".

The sister of sapper Luke Allsopp told the Daily Mirror tabloid that officers from his barracks told her he had died on the spot in battle.

At a news conference in London Friday, armed forces minister Adam Ingram expressed "regret" for any distress that had been caused, while acknowledging that it had not formally been established that the soldiers were executed.

Meanwhile, asked about media reports of a pause of four to six days in the offensive towards Baghdad, British military spokesman Captain Al Lockwood told Sky News Saturday: "I would not call it a pause. It is purely a case of shaping the battlefield, getting out our troops equipped and in the right place for the next part of the campaign."

A British military spokesman on Saturday denied media reports that up to five other British soldiers had been captured in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, saying that no British troops had gone missing overnight.

But the defence ministry did confirm that one British soldier was missing, presumed dead, and four others were injured in a separate incident apparently involving friendly fire.

Media reports suggested that the soldier was killed after a US A10 tankbuster plane targeted two armoured vehicles near Basra, but the defence ministry said it was still investigating the circumstances.

The Daily Mirror tabloid reported on Saturday that the number of British troops serving in the Gulf could be cut dramatically from 45,000 to 5,000 if the US-led war against Iraq drags on for at least six months, quoting an unnamed government official.

Britain's main anti-war group, the Stop The War Coalition, an umbrella body for some 300 organisations, said protest marches against the conflict were being staged in at least 20 cities as a way of "expressing mounting anger at the news of the rising civilian casualties". Attendance figures were expected later.

A Metropolitan police spokeswoman told AFP that 23 separate demonstrations took place in London, with up to 10,000 people taking part in total. The protests were peaceful and no arrests were made, the spokeswoman added.

In the Irish capital Dublin, police estimated 8,000 took part in a march against the war in Iraq and against the Irish government's decision to continue to provide landing and overflight facilities to US military planes heading to the Gulf.

Green Party leader Trevor Sargent said, however, he believed the crowd exceeded 20,000 people.

WAR.WIRE