IRAQ: A bomb attack on a US convoy killed a US soldier and wounded two in Iraq yesterday, as hundreds of troops began a new operation to hunt down guerrillas in the hostile Sunni heartlands north of Baghdad.
The loss was the 139th for US forces since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1st. The bomb attack took the death toll past the 138 US casualties sustained in six weeks of war.
A US army spokeswoman said the convoy was attacked on a highway west of the capital between the Sunni Muslim towns of Falluja and Ramadi, hotbeds of resistance against occupying US forces. Roadside bombs and improvised mines have been widely used against vulnerable US convoys in Iraq.
According to new figures compiled by the Pentagon, the attack brought to 62 the number of US soldiers killed in action since May 1st. Most guerrilla attacks have taken place in Baghdad and Sunni areas to the north and west of the capital, from where Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, drew much of his support.
A further 77 American troops have died in accidents or other ways not involving combat in the past four months.
The 4th Infantry Division, based in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, said yesterday it had launched Operation Ivy Needle, a series of raids backed by tanks, armoured vehicles and helicopters to root out resistance in three provinces.
"What we are doing is surgical strikes on more remote areas where we have not had a very large or enduring military presence," Maj Josslyn Aberle told reporters in Tikrit.
The first raids in the new operation were around the town of Khalis, north of the capital, where troops were hunting members of a criminal gang suspected of carrying out several attacks on American forces and Iraqi police.
Officers said the gang was led by a crime boss released last year when Saddam granted an amnesty to prisoners in Iraq's notorious jails.
They said 24 people had been detained but the gang leader had not been found.
US forces have mounted scores of raids in the "Sunni triangle" north and west of Baghdad, looking for Saddam and his top lieutenants.
Last week, US officers announced the capture of two of Saddam's most senior aides - "Chemical Ali" Hassan al-Majid and former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan.
Defending the US occupation of Iraq, President Bush yesterday vowed to pursue the war against terrorism which, he said, had in part prompted the action against Baghdad.
"Our war on terror continues. The enemies of freedom are not idle, and neither are we. This country will not rest, we will not tire and we will not stop until this danger to civilisation is removed," Mr Bush said at a fund-raising event.
Meanwhile, an Arabic television station aired a videotaped warning from previously unheard-of Islamic groups in Iraq yesterday threatening death to members of a US-formed council and Iraqis who co-operate with US troops.
"Death to the spies and traitors, before the Americans," a masked man said on the tape, broadcast on Dubai-based Al Arabiya TV. "Many Iraqis have got involved with them. We'll kill them first before we kill the Americans," he said. - (Reuters)