ALI Ismail Abbas, the Iraqi boy who lost both arms and both parents to an American rocket, was finally being evacuated last night from the Baghdad hospital where he faced almost certain death from his injuries.

Twelve-year-old Ali was being taken by the US military to Kuwait City, where the Kuwaiti Government has agreed to treat the burns covering more than a third of his body.

His rescue was organised by The Australian when a Perth reader, Tony Trevisan, telephoned to ask if he could help after reading in Monday's edition that Ali's nurse and doctors believed he could die any day from blood infections.

The Australian returned to the Saddam City hospital, where Ali was being treated, to discover that previous offers of assistance and attempts by foreign aid and media groups to get him to a safer environment had come to nothing.

The US military had offered to take Ali to a hospital ship to stabilise his condition, but was reluctant to take on responsibility for the child because he needed long-term care, including plastic surgery and prosthetics, and US officers felt a distant military hospital was not the best place for him.

Hospital director Mowafak Gorea had also rejected some offers of assistance, saying he had heard plenty of promises but seen no action, and did not want Ali taken far from the uncle and aunt who were now his guardians.

That left Ali in an unsterile ward of a hospital struggling to cope with scores of war-related casualties and attacks by armed looters.

With no telephone lines working in Baghdad, The Australian shuttled between US Navy medical officer Ed Martin and the hospital administrator before proposing neighbouring Kuwait as a solution.

Stewart Innes, a Kuwaiti-based Briton who has been working as The Australian's translator during the war, then used his contacts in Kuwait City to approach health and charity officials there.

Within hours, an assistant director of the Kuwaiti Health Ministry, Abdul Rida Abbas, had agreed to provide immediate help to save Ali's life and the longer-term care he desperately needed.

After the hospital and Ali's family had agreed, the US military offered to provide a helicopter flight to Kuwait, US medical officers using The Australian's satellite phone and hotel room yesterday to speak to Kuwaiti officials to organise the details of Ali's transfer.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Tony Blair was responding to wide coverage in the British media of Ali's plight by telling the House of Commons that every effort should be made to save the boy.

Mr Blair did not know that a haven in Kuwait and an evacuation flight for Ali had already been organised.

His minders in London apparently later suggested to reporters that Mr Blair had been involved, although the US military doctors insisted there had been no such role.

British television networks rushed to the hospital after Mr Blair's comments, creating a media crush as medical staff awaited the US ambulance.

Ali's parents and brother were killed in the night-time rocket attack that destroyed their home two weeks ago. Most of his six sisters were injured in the blast.

Ali's uncle was to travel to Kuwait City with him to care for him there. The Australian will assist him in Kuwait, and Mr Trevisan yesterday offered $US5000 ($8275) to help the uncle stay in Kuwait City for some time so Ali did not feel alone.

"I wanted to do anything I could after reading that story and seeing (John Feder's) photograph," Mr Trevisan said.

"It was a cruel photo to see, with those injuries and his beautiful brown eyes, but it was one of the most compelling photos I have ever seen."