A U.S. Marine on guard as he watches the town of Fallujah (AFP)

BAGHDAD, April 25 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A new agreement between officials in the restive Iraqi town of Fallujah and the U.S.-led occupation  has been reached to extend the ceasefire “indefinitely”, though press reports indicated that a sweeping invasion of the town is in the offing.

“We have reached a new deal that extended the ceasefire indefinitely and secured an agreement on several new points,” said Hashim Al-Hassani of the Sunni Islamic Party Sunday, April 25.

He said the deal includes a ban on carrying weapons as of Tuesday, April 27, and the start of joint patrols of Iraqi police, Civil Defense Corps forces and occupation troops in the town under a crippling U.S. siege since April 5, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Hassani said the deal calls for “continuing the gathering of heavy weapons” from Iraqi fighters and residents and allowing families to return to the town, some 50 kilometers from Baghdad, and facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid.

A senior occupation military official only confirmed that talks Friday night, April 23, would allow the return of 67 families to Fallujah Sunday.

Fallujah residents started Tuesday, April 20, returning home one day after a deal had been reached between the occupation authority and leading figures from Fallujah after several days of talks.

The U.S. offensive has claimed the lives of at least 600 Iraqis, mostly women and children, and left up to 1500 others injured, according to medics in the besieged town.

Invasion

A Fallujah family negotiates to return home

But The New York Times reported Sunday that U.S. President George W. Bush and his senior national security and military advisers are expected to decide this weekend whether to order an invasion of Fallujah.

“It's clear you can't leave a few thousand insurgents there to terrorize the city and shoot at us,” one senior official involved in the discussions told the American best-selling daily on condition of anonymity.

“The question now is whether there is a way to go in with the most minimal casualties possible.”

The official said that Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East, has the Marines “ready to go” back on the offensive at any time.

Bush is reportedly mulling ‘full invasion’ of the town

The paper also reported that U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has “expressed strong doubts that the Fallujah political and business figures the Americans are talking to hold any sway over the insurgents”.

On the battleground, Marine commanders are getting assignments for potential targets, studying maps and planning lines of attack for an intense fighting that they expect could come in the next few days, the Times said.

“The kind of operation now being contemplated is hardly the sort of painful choice his [Bush] administration anticipated nearly a year after he declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq and the defeat of Saddam Hussein's government,” the daily commented.