"There's work that's ongoing right now to secure some sort of agreement that will lead to a ceasefire and capitulation," Brooks said at the war command headquarters in Qatar.

General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday that coalition air forces had bombed Mujahedeen camps in Iraq and that some fighters were expected to surrender soon.

Myers said it was too soon to tell what effect the strikes would have on US relations with Iran, which President George W. Bush last year labeled part of an "axis of evil" with Saddam Hussein's Iraq and North Korea.

Iran, the United States and the European Union all considered the People's Mujahedeen a terrorist organisation. The group has frequently claimed responsibility for attacks and assassinations inside Iran.

The People's Mujahedeen were given sanctuary by now deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in 1986, when they were chased out of Iran and he was in the thick of a bloody war with his neighbour.

An AFP correspondent who visited the Mujahedeen's vast camp Wednesday at Falluja, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Baghdad, found that the guerrillas had deserted the isolated compound. Several buildings in the heart of the gated community had suffered bomb damage.

The Mujahedeen also had a formidable propaganda arm based in Western countries, an irritant in Tehran's relations with European states.

An Iranian government spokesman on Wednesday demanded the extradition of senior Mujahedeen figures to stand trial and said Tehran was "negotiating with all countries about the leaders of this group."

However, the spokesman, Abdullah Ramezanzadeh, said Mujahedeen rank-and-file would be allowed to return home.

"Taking into account that their bases have been bombed by US forces inflicting heavy losses, we are ready to accept their junior members back home," he said.

According to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Mujahedeen had some 15,000 fighters, including many women, equipped with arms seized from the Iranian army during the war.

In recent statements the group has accused Iran of sending its own forces and "mercenaries" over the border to attack a number of its camps, though it did not mention Falluja.

These reports have not been independently confirmed.

SPACE.WIRE