A Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Dan Stoneking said he was unable to confirm the report, carried on the US News magazine's Internet web page and the front page of London's Sunday Times newspaper.

US News said that the so-called Free Iraqi Freedom Fighters (FIFF) were connected to the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an opposition group composed of Iraqis from the south and center who joined the Kurds in the north.

It said the US military has moved about 100 to 200 FIFF members to the south so they could evaluate their fighting skills.

"We are relocating, reorganizing, and reconstituting" them, a US official was quoted as saying.

US officials said they expect the FIFF will be armed and assigned to fight alongside U.S. special forces, US News said.

The Sunday Times said that the force was being led by the head of the opposition Iraqi National Congress (INC), Ahmed Chalabi, who was reportedly due to fly to a secret location in southern Iraq on Saturday night.

"The moment of liberation is at hand," Chalabi told the newspaper.

"We are going back, we are Iraqis and we will show the world," he was quoted as saying.

SPACE.WIRE