IRAQ: US troops hunting Saddam Hussein carried out a raid on a villa in central Baghdad yesterday, killing five people, but there was no sign of the former Iraqi dictator, witnesses said.
US Marines opened fire during clashes with stone-throwing crowds in the Shia Muslim holy city of Kerbala and a senior US general said Iraq was becoming a "terrorist magnet" for foreign fighters seeking to attack Americans. Apparently acting on the sort of tip-off that enabled troops to kill Saddam's two sons last week, squads from the Task Force 20 special unit leading the hunt for the former Iraqi leader sealed off part of Baghdad's smart Mansur district. It was once a favoured haunt for Saddam.
US military spokesmen would say only it was a Task Force 20 operation and gave no further details.
Residents and local doctors said five people were killed and eight wounded, some when troops opened fire on passing cars and riddled them with bullets. They said those killed had no clear connection to Saddam.
The force left the area quickly, suggesting no key finds.
With U.S. troops facing increasingly bloody guerrilla-style attacks, Iraqi reaction to the killing of any innocent people does not make their task of winning hearts and minds any easier.
A US soldier guarding a Baghdad hospital said five men, including a young teenager, were brought in dead from the Mansur raid.
A US soldier was killed during a night patrol south of Baghdad yesterday, the fifth in 24 hours, and the clashes involving US Marines in Kerbala occurred after a man was shot dead on Saturday.
Local people accused them of killing a second man yesterday in a reminder that tensions are not restricted to Saddam's Sunni Muslim heartlands north and west of the capital.
"America is the enemy of God" chanted dozens of mourners as they carried the coffin of Haider al-Shihlawi, in his 20s, who doctors said was shot by US troops.
Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen Richard Myers flew in to visit US troops in Saddam's home town of Tikrit, north of Baghdad, where some of the search for the dictator has been concentrated.
Saying there was a big rise in the number of Iraqis coming forward with information since the killing of Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay on Tuesday, he said he was confident of tracking down the former Iraqi leader.
"It's just a matter of time," Gen Myers told reporters.
Saddam has a $25 million tag on his head and Washington hopes paying out a $30 million reward to an informer on his sons will encourage others.
Gen Myers declined to echo the hopes of other US commanders that the deaths would help stem the guerrilla-style attacks on US troops that Washington blames on Saddam loyalists. Ten US troops have been killed in attacks since Saddam's sons were killed.