IRAQ: US forces backed by aircraft and armoured vehicles yesterday launched a crackdown on armed resistance in areas north of Baghdad where Saddam Hussein once enjoyed wide support.
Meanwhile, in the latest of a series of hit-and-run attacks, an Iraqi civilian was killed and two US military police were wounded in the capital when an explosion targeted a US convoy.
Washington's top civilian official in Iraq, Mr Paul Bremer, said US-led forces would suffer further casualties until Saddam loyalists were killed or captured. However, US army commander Gen Tommy Franks, who led the swift defeat of Iraq's army, said recent attacks on US troops did not "spoil the victory".
US troops detained more than 60 people and seized weapons and military documents as part of the mission, Operation Sidewinder, in areas from the Iranian border to the east to towns north of the capital.
US Central Command said 15 people were arrested and some weapons confiscated during raids in the city of Mosul in northern Iraq on Saturday. The raids targeted followers of a Wahabi Muslim fundamentalist leader, it said.
Soldiers also imposed tighter measures around military posts, US-led administration offices and ministry buildings in the city of five million, witnesses said. They also stepped up search operations for weapons and for wanted Saddam loyalists.
US forces in mainly Sunni Muslim central Iraq have come under fire almost daily in recent weeks, despite ousting Saddam on April 9th. Officers blame scattered remnants of Saddam's Fedayeen paramilitary force and his Baath Party for the attacks.
At least 22 Americans have been killed by hostile fire since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1st. Some analysts have warned that the surge in attacks could lead to open revolt against the occupying forces.
"Will the problems in Iraq and the attacks spoil the victory achieved by the Americans? Of course not," Gen Franks, retiring commander of US Central Command, said after talks with the Egyptian President, Mr Hosni Mubarak, in Cairo. "It is a certainty that the regime of Saddam Hussein is gone from Iraq . . . It is also a certainty that some 25, maybe 26 million Iraqis have a brighter future today than they had three or four months ago," he said.
Saturday's deaths took to more than 200 the number of Americans who have died, both in combat and non-combat incidents, since US forces began the war in Iraq on March 20th.
Mr Bremer told the BBC's Breakfast with Frost yesterday that the chances were "very high" Saddam would be caught. "We will catch him. I think it is important that we either capture or kill him," Mr Bremer said.
He said remnants of Saddam's government still fighting would either be killed or captured. "It is unfortunately the case, we will continue to take casualties. But there is no strategic threat to the coalition here."
Britain's Ministry of Defence said 500 troops returned to Majar al-Kabir, about 380 km from Baghdad, on Saturday, the town where gunmen killed six British soldiers last week. Commanders met a delegation of Shia Muslim clerics and local dignitaries. The troops told people they wanted to help them re-establish their community, not punish them, the ministry said.
Majar residents said the force, which drove into the town in about 40 military vehicles, stayed for only three hours. The British informed town leaders they had no plans to stay. Residents said the force checked the police station where most of the soldiers died last Tuesday. At least four Iraqis were also killed in the shooting.
In the US, Senator Joseph Biden, an influential opposition Democrat member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said yesterday an international force of up to 60,000 troops was needed in Iraq to halt the violence.
"I want to see French, German, I want to see Turkish patches on people's arms sitting on the street corners, standing there in Iraq," Mr Biden said. - (Reuters)