Flight Lieutenant Peter Darling said British troops were "nibbling at the edges" of Iraqi defences in the city of more than one million people which is seen as a vital staging post for humanitarian supplies.

The British attacked outlying areas of Basra on Monday but were awaiting reinforcements before any drive into the town centre, which has been defended by paramilitary forces fiercely loyal to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

"We're basically taking out small chunks of the city. We're not going to be rushed into there and liberate it in what one would consider to be an onslaught, as it were," he said at the US-led coalition's command centre here.

"We're going to use our own timetable and do it in our own way. Hopefully as the civilians realise that we're here for the long haul, we'll get more and more information about where the enemy troops are."

In the neighbouring town of Abu al-Khasib, 20 kilometres (12 miles) away, reports said the last Iraqi resistance had been wiped out and British troops were being welcomed by some residents.

Darling said the region around Basra was generally returning to normal after being "liberated" by British forces.

"The good news is that in three towns -- Az-Zubayr, Rumaila and Safwan -- the soldiers are putting their berets on, which shows that there's a large degree of confidence returning to the area," Darling said.

"Indeed the schools and the markets are reopening."

Officers here said the berets were a symbolic gesture to the local people. "You can see the guys' faces, so it indicates openness and friendliness," said one British spokeswoman.

Cars, trucks and coaches packed with families flooded across the southernmost of four main bridges out of the city on Monday, while traders poured in from the other direction to sell food and water.

One British intelligence source told a reporter outside Basra that it was the biggest movement of people he had seen in weeks.

"There are many reasons for the comings and goings ... Some just want to get out of Basra because they can -- and they don't want to be around if the British start to get tough with the remaining militia," he said.

"Others are taking the chance to get their wives and children out of the city to be with relatives elsewhere and that could account for the fact that it is mainly males returning."

He said many people indicated that the destruction of a huge statue of Saddam in the town centre -- taken out by British tanks during a surgical incursion on the weekend -- was the "catalyst for some new-found optimism".

"This is a sceptical population which still has painful memories of the 1991 uprising, when they feel they were left to fend for themselves by the Allied forces, before being brutally put down by Saddam."

That failed uprising was sparked by an Iraqi tank commander returning from the Gulf war who took a pot shot at the Saddam statue.

The intelligence officer, who did not want to be named, said the British army excelled at urban operations but the Americans might find it much more difficult once they reached the outskirts of Baghdad.

"With the best will in the world, it's not something the Americans do as well as us. They would rather stay inside their armoured cars wearing their helmets and body armour rather than getting out and about and winning the confidence of these people," he said.

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