Jamaica’s top policeman vowed today to capture the reputed underworld boss who escaped a bloody four-day assault on his slum stronghold amid growing claims that innocent people died during the fighting.

Jamaican security forces kicked down doors and arrested dozens of people in a bullet-strewn slum and said the death toll from four days of fighting sparked by the search for a reputed drug lord had risen to 73.

THE overall death toll from four days of violence in Jamaica’s capital rose to 49 yesterday after the country’s ombudsman said he had tallied the bodies of 44 civilians killed in a police assault on an alleged drug lord’s stronghold.

Police claimed a tenuous hold over the Jamaican slum stronghold of a wanted gang leader today, but only after fighting that left at least 48 people dead.

Thousands of police and soldiers stormed the Jamaican ghettos where reggae was born in search of a reputed drug kingpin wanted by the United States, intensifying a third day of street battles that have killed at least 30 people.

THOUSANDS of heavily armed police and soldiers continued an assault into the capital’s most violent downtown slums yesterday, scouring buildings for weapons and battling die-hard defenders of a powerful Jamaican gang leader sought by the US.

Thousands of heavily armed police and soldiers barged past barricades into Jamaica's most violent slums today, clashing with die-hard defenders of a gang leader sought by the US, leaving at least 30 people dead.