Saddam loyalists detained in raids

US troops arrested seven suspected Saddam Hussein loyalists in raids north of the capital, while the interim Governing Council warned the US military its bruising tactics risk alienating the hearts and minds of the population.

The soldiers near Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit detained seven people in a raid targeting a financier of attacks on coalition forces, the US military said early yesterday.

However, when compared with sweeps last month, the results were meagre.

The raid, launched on Monday, involved 17 homes in the village of Mukayshifah, 20 kilometres southwest of Tikrit, where opponents of the US-led occupation in Iraq were believed to be gathering.

“We think they were financing operations against coalition forces,” Major Troy Smith told AFP at the 4th Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade headquarters.

Objective Taco Bell, as the mission was named, most likely did not catch its main prey, a suspected financier of the deadly ambushes that have claimed the lives of 57 soldiers since May.

Seventy-three persons were rounded up in an initial sweep of the homes, and 66 were screened and released. No large money or weapons caches were found in the raid.

Meanwhile, US forces received a serious warning from one of their best friends in Iraq, the 25-member Governing Council. Ibrahim Jafari, the first president of the council, said the fledgling government body had told Americans to ease their aggressive raids, as civilians find themselves trapped in the middle, with lethal consequences.

He warned that rough conduct by US forces would only let “hatred grow against them.”