- (AFP) -- Hundreds of US soldiers backed by air support
sealed off much of Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, raiding a score
of houses and arresting 30 suspected anti-coalition fighters.
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- A total of 46 suspects were seized in the night raid
as Bradley tanks rumbled through the city and a heavily-armed AC-130 Spectre
gunship flew overhead, the US military said.
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- The operation's commander Lieutenant Colonel Steve Russell
said 16 people had since been released while 30 remained under interrogation,
including one man identified as a mole who had leaked information to guerrillas.
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- He said 14 of those apprehended in the operation were
"targeted" individuals, including one linked to the death of
a soldier from the US 4th Infantry Division (4ID) in an attack on October
1.
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- Others were involved "in financing and organising
attacks, one was involved in handing out leaflets, death-threat type leaflets
... threatening Iraqis who worked with the government and coalition,"
Russell said.
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- Soldiers of the 1-22 Battalion of the 4ID involved in
the raid handcuffed and blindfolded suspects after pulling them from their
houses in front of family members.
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- "This is the third time we've raided this house
since June," said Sergeant Patrick McDermott as his colleagues hauled
three men out of one house.
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- "Half the people in this area love us. The rest
hate us," added the sergeant, while his colleagues dug holes in the
garden and scoured the building for hidden weapons, watched by a woman
resident and her teenage son.
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- The three suspects were taken away to be interrogated,
and the men from the 1-22's Charlie Company turned their attention to a
house a few hundred metres (yards) away.
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- There they scaled a garden wall and burst into another
home where the women and children stood by and watched their menfolk being
led outside to be tied up and have a white band placed over their eyes.
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- One of the four detainees suddenly tried to break free
and was grappled to the ground by soldiers, sustaining a minor head wound
in the process.
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- "He knows he's in trouble. That's why he tried to
run," said Russell, who toured some of the 20 houses and three stores
targeted in the raids that began shortly before midnight Thursday and went
on until the early hours of Friday.
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- Russell's battalion is in charge of patrolling the restive
town, where many still support Saddam and where attacks on US troops are
a frequent occurrence.
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- But while deadly assaults on coalition forces are continuing
elsewhere in the so-called Sunni triangle, north and west of Baghdad, in
Tikrit they have decreased since the capture of Saddam on December 13.
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- Friday's raids, in which about 300 soldiers took part,
were a bid by the 1-22 Battalion to give Tikrit a "good scrubbing,"
said Russell, adding that "it was a good night."
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- "Tikrit will be a safer place tomorrow as a result,"
he told reporters who observed the operation.
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- The raid also saw the seizure of equipment used to counterfeit
police identities and gun permits as well as evidence of bomb-making equipment
and some small arms, Russell said.
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