US takes 260 prisoners in Iraq raid

HEAVILY-ARMED US Army forces stormed into a village near the northern city of Tikrit before dawn yesterday, seizing more than 260 prisoners, including one man on the most-wanted list of former Iraqi officials.

US troops encountered no resistance during the five-hour sweep, officers said. About 230 of those detained were being released later in the day, the military said.

Elsewhere, soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division shot and wounded a looter in Mosul after being fired upon, US military officials said. The shooting came a day after military officials, who had been criticised about the continued lawlessness in Iraq, denied issuing a shoot-on-sight policy against looters.

Also yesterday, new US civilian administrator Lietenant Paul Bremer held his first news conference, saying American forces are working hard to improve security and promising to fight remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime. He said 300 criminals have been arrested around the country this week.

In Umm Qasr, British forces formally turned over control of the port city to a civilian government, the first such handover since the war ended.

Tikrit is Saddam Hussein's hometown and the region around it is a hotbed of Ba'ath Party supporters.

US officials said one of those arrested yesterday was on the "top 55" list but did not give the suspect's name. The US Central Command announced the arrest of Fadil Mahmud Gharib, former Ba'ath Party chairman of the Babil district. It said he was number 47 on the most-wanted list, but the statement didn't say when or where he was arrested and it did not appear that he was arrested in yesterday's raid.

Five Iraqi special security forces offers also were caught in the raid including two army generals and a general from Saddam's security forces who had disguised himself as a shepherd. "We're going to continue to hunt them until they get so tired of running that they give themselves up or we catch them," said Major Mike Silverman, operations officer for the 1st Brigade of the 4th Infantry, the Army division that staged the raid.

"I think it was very successful," Silverman added. "We got one top-55 guy and about a dozen fairly bad guys off the street. And again we sent the message that we know the shadow regime is out there and it won't be tolerated."