The letter from Memorial and the Moscow Helsinki Group was addressed to the US and British governments via their embassies, Memorial director Oleg Orlov said.

The organisations urged the belligerents to "stop the bombardments of the towns for as long as there are civilians there," to "allow the creation of safety corridors allowing civilians to leave the combat zones, including the towns," and to "provide the necessary humanitarian aid," Orlov said.

Memorial moreover called on Iraq not "to prevent the departure of civilians from conflict zones," to "hinder the provision of humanitarian aid" or to "place military objectives in residential areas that have not been evacuated or near hospitals," he added.

Orlov said a letter to this effect has been sent to Baghdad via the Iraqi embassy in Moscow.

Military strategists have predicted that Iraq would withdraw much of its elite Republican Guard to residential areas around Baghdad in order to draw encircling US and British forces into house-to-house fighting.

Memorial, which has campaigned vigorously for peace and human rights in Russia's separatist republic of Chechnya, has voiced concern for the growing number of civilian victims in Iraq.

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