US forces have freed the police chief of the Iraqi city of Fallujah after warplanes bombed what the military said were houses and arms dumps used by militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
There was no word on casualties in the overnight raids, the latest in a drive against militants led by al-Zarqawi, said to be operating from Fallujah.
The police chief, Sabar al-Janabi, and his colleagues were detained on Friday with the city's chief negotiator, Khaled al-Jumaili, who was released early yesterday.
The US military gave no reason for the arrests and never confirmed it was holding the four men.
They were seized as they were moving their families away from Fallujah for safety. Townspeople called off a demonstration set for today to demand the policemen's release. Police in Fallujah do not answer to the interim government in Baghdad.
The US-backed government, threatening to attack Fallujah unless Zarqawi's men are handed over, plans a nationwide arms amnesty to start next week as part of its drive to pacify all of Iraq before parliamentary elections due in January.
Secretary of State Colin Powell told USA Today: "It's still possible to have the kind of election we want to have by the end of January. The key is security and building up Iraqi forces to make them competent, fully equipped and able to do the job."
Mr Powell said the "estrangement" with Europeans over Iraq was being resolved. But USA Todaysaid he acknowledged that the Iraq war and failure to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict had caused a troubling rise in anti-Americanism in the Middle East.