IRAQ: US forces sealed off roads and searched houses in the restive towns around Baghdad yesterday in a hunt for Ba'ath Party loyalists blamed for recent attacks.
US army spokesman Sgt Brian Thomas said the new mission, Operation Desert Scorpion, would root out Saddam supporters who have staged ambushes on US troops.
"We are trying to detain people who want to destabilise Iraq," he said, adding that the mission would focus on Baghdad and the tense areas to the north and west of the capital.
The operation aims to win hearts and minds as well as hunt guerrillas. A central command statement said it was "designed to identify and defeat selected Ba'ath party loyalists, terrorist organisations and criminal elements while delivering humanitarian aid simultaneously".
In the Sunni town of Falluja, 45 miles west of Baghdad, troops searched houses overnight, but by morning they were distributing food and supplies.
Hostility to the Americans is widespread in Falluja after a series of clashes, but the town was quiet yesterday with a low-key army presence.
Some 40 US soldiers have been killed by hostile action since the US declared major combat over on May 1st.
The attacks have been concentrated in Baghdad and two nearby areas - to the west around Ramadi and Falluja, and to the north around Balad, Baquba and Tikrit, Saddam's home town.
The US says remnants of Saddam's regime are behind the attacks.
Many locals say they have no love for Saddam, but that anger is mounting towards US soldiers.
"We were oppressed under Saddam and now we are oppressed under the Americans," a trader in Falluja said.
Meanwhile Gen Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a television interview that Saddam was probably still alive, and that several groups were behind recent attacks.
"I think probably the majority opinion is that he is alive and it's something that has to be dealt with," Gen Myers told the US Fox News Channel on Saturday.
US forces last week mounted their biggest operation in Iraq in the past six weeks.
Called Operation Peninsula Strike, it involved a series of raids on suspected guerrilla hideouts in the fertile plains of the Tigris river near Balad.
In a statement, the US military said some 400 Iraqis were detained in the sweep, and about 60 were still in custody.
Central command also said on Friday that US forces had captured the commander of the former Iraqi air force, Hamid Raja Shalah al-Tikriti, but did not reveal where he was caught. He was number 17 on a US list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis.
Meanwhile a US military convoy was ambushed on a highway near the town of Balad yesterday evening.
A truck was ablaze after apparently being hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.
Reports said US Apache helicopters were buzzing overhead and tanks and armoured personnel carriers were at the scene, some 60 miles north of Baghdad. Soldiers said several casualties had been evacuated. - (Reuters)