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Senior Figure Evades U.S. Troops Hunting Saddam
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By Alastair Macdonald
TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. troops hunting Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and his top lieutenants just missed catching a senior figure in an overnight raid, but have captured high-profile suspects over the last few days, the military said on Monday.
Soldiers came under attack again in central Baghdad when a bomb was thrown at a Humvee vehicle in broad daylight, wounding three soldiers and an Iraqi translator, the military said.
Witnesses said troops had detained around 50 people afterwards in a nearby building.
On Sunday night, about 300 soldiers with armored vehicles and backed by helicopters fanned out to villages north and east of Saddam's home town of Tikrit for a manhunt under cover of darkness. They searched homes and interrogated families, but did not find the key Saddam loyalists they were looking for.
Major Josslyn Aberle of the 4th Infantry Division said some targets had been tracked down despite Sunday's disappointment.
"On Saturday, two high-profile individuals were detained near Baiji," she said, adding that Task Force 20, the secretive special forces unit hunting Saddam's inner circle, took part.
She did not name the detainees or the top target who had evaded Sunday night's dragnet. Baiji lies north of Tikrit.
The U.S. military blames Saddam loyalists and foreign Arab fighters for a guerrilla campaign that has killed 53 American troops since Washington declared major combat over on May 1.
In Khaldiya, a tense town west of Baghdad in the restive "Sunni triangle," enraged Iraqis attacked a police station, pelting a police pickup truck with stones and setting it ablaze.
They were angry about an explosion in a row of shops, which they said Iraqi police and American troops had caused. The U.S. army said it had no information on the incident.
"RING IS CLOSING"
The 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment of the 4th Infantry Division has been leading many of the raids around Tikrit. Battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Steve Russell said Saddam loyalists were being steadily hunted down.
"They provide security, they do different things for the former regime, and the ring is closing," he said in Tikrit.
On Sunday, U.S. soldiers also scoured areas near the Sunni towns of Falluja and Ramadi west of Baghdad. The military said troops had captured 20 "former regime loyalists."
U.S. soldiers in Tikrit say there is a chance Saddam is hiding in the area. The deposed dictator's sons Uday and Qusay, along with Qusay's teenage son Mustafa, were killed on July 22 when U.S. troops stormed their hideout in northern Iraq (news - web sites).
But there has been no sign of Saddam, despite the offer of a $25 million reward for information on his whereabouts. Washington paid $30 million to the man who betrayed Uday and Qusay.
Arab television networks have broadcast several tapes said to be from Saddam, exhorting Iraqis to fight a holy war to expel U.S. troops. The CIA (news - web sites) says the latest tapes are probably genuine.
As the human and financial cost of stabilizing Iraq mounts, the United States and its allies are considering asking the United Nations (news - web sites) to persuade other countries to pitch in.
Britain's outgoing envoy to Iraq, John Sawers, was quoted by the Financial Times as saying London and Washington were exploring whether another U.N. resolution was needed.
France's defense minister said on Monday his country, a leading opponent of the war, was willing to help rebuild Iraq -- if a new U.N. mandate was passed and Washington asked for help.
White House spokesman Scott McLellan said at the weekend that existing U.N. resolutions provided an adequate mandate for other countries to assist in rebuilding and stabilizing Iraq.

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