Bush ready to act with or without UN

Bush has said that if the United Nations is not prepared to act, the United States will lead what he calls a coalition of the willing to disarm Iraq.

Public opinion in Britain and many other countries is opposed to a war without UN authorisation.

Anti-war activists vowed to block all movement of US arms by rail between American bases in Italy and Italian dock workers pledged to stop handling US war cargo.

Some 30,000 people marched through the Moroccan capital Rabat to denounce US policy and at least 5,000 through Moscow. Hundreds of Omanis, carrying Iraqi and Palestinian flags, protested in the capital Muscat.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged Iraqi leaders not to misinterpret such protests as a licence to resist the United Nations. "They have to destroy these weapons... If they refuse to destroy them, the council will have to take a decision on that," he said.

Former Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, a Middle East expert and long-time friend of Saddam, met officials in Baghdad as part of a mission for President Vladimir Putin.

Russia, which is owed billions of dollars by Iraq and has signed valuable contracts to develop Iraqi oilfields, says it sees no need to use force against Baghdad.

A major element of Washington's diplomatic preparation for war has been to win Turkey's permission to use its bases as a launchpad and its border with Iraq as a gateway to invade.

Turkey, anxious to dampen Kurdish nationalism in Iraq that might stir up separatism in its own Kurdish southeast, says it will send troops into northern Iraq on the heels of an American force to prevent an independent Kurdish state emerging.

Kurds in northern Iraq reacted angrily to what appeared to be the terms of a near-complete US-Turkish agreement.

"If there's a forced incursion... believe me there will be uncontrolled clashes," said a spokesman for the Kurdish Democratic Party.

Iraq said US and British warplanes enforcing "no-fly zones" over the country hit civilian targets in the south but reported no casualties. The US military said it was unaware of any such attack.

Saudi Arabia raised the army's state of alert and started ordering gas masks for civilians. The kingdom is home to about 5,000 US troops, but has yet to decide whether to allow US forces to attack Iraq from its territory without UN approval.

Instead, Kuwait is the main base for the planned thrust into southern Iraq. Kuwaiti authorities said yesterday an Iraqi had been arrested on suspicion of spying on American forces.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said an Arab summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh next Saturday would be aimed at achieving a united stance to avoid a war against Iraq.