Cairo - More than 4 500 Egyptians have volunteered to fight the United States-British coalition which is swiftly taking control over Iraq, the national bar association which is organising recruitment said on Tuesday.

As the fall of Baghdad appeared increasingly likely, dozens of people still struggled to put their names down on forms which have been available at the offices of the lawyers' grouping since Thursday.

Sayed Shaaban, the association's official responsible for handling the volunteers, admitted however that no one has yet left for Iraq from Egypt.

He said the bar association, which is dominated by the opposition radical Muslim Brotherhood, received the applications and sorted them to ensure candidates met the conditions required, notably a clean criminal record and a passport.
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