Engineers attached to the 1st Battalion Royal Irish were searching for the dungeons although it was feared they may have been flooded by men loyal to Saddam Hussein's Baath party before they fled the area, killing all those inside.

Commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins said: "There is an allegation that Iraqi and Kuwaiti prisoners were brought here from Baghdad when the UN weapons inspectors closed in."

"The head of police has told us that the use of underground chambers as prisons was standard practice but we fear that if there were any they will have been flooded to get rid of the evidence," he said.

Kuwait said Saturday that it was expending every effort with the help of coalition forces to determine the fate of more than 600 people who disappeared during Iraq's 1990-91 occupation of the emirate.

Meanwhile an intelligence operation was under way to establish if Baghdad had used the Maysan province as a hiding place for any weapons of mass destruction.

The city of Al-Amarah, which played a pivotal role in the 1991 uprising against Saddam following the last Gulf War, was under occupation Saturday following its descent into the same chaos of destruction and looting as Basra and Baghdad.

"There are allegations that the regime brought their chemical weapons here too," Collins said.

Troops were said already to have found banned Al-Samoud missiles, which can carry chemical weapons, in the area. Their launchers are disguised as civilian trucks and parked in civilian areas, such as sports stadiums and schools.

Collins said they will try to begin restoring order to the city on Sunday.

"There has been wanton destruction of all public property and there is serious in-fighting between the Shiite Muslim militia, the secular militia and anti-regime fighters who had gone into exile in Iran and have now returned," he said.

"Unlike other cities where we have been perceived as liberators, everybody believes they have a constituency here and all I can do is point out that I have more troops and more firepower than anybody."

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