US troops continue raids as ‘net closes’ on Saddam

US soldiers raided homes and farmhouses in the hostile Sunni heartland around Baghdad yesterday, detaining dozens of suspected Saddam Hussein loyalists and saying the net was closing on the deposed dictator himself.

Soldiers from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, based in the restive towns of Falluja and Ramadi west of the capital in the “Sunni triangle”, mounted a series of raids, the US Army said.

“Twenty former regime loyalists, including a targeted leader, were captured,” a US military statement said.

Locals said 70-year-old farmer Hamad Antar was killed and three of his sons wounded by troops who opened fire on his car during one raid as he drove between his home and nearby fields.

The military said the 4th Infantry Division, which polices a tense region north of Baghdad including Saddam’s home town of Tikrit, also staged several raids, capturing 26 detainees including two suspected “mid-level former regime loyalists”.

Troops from the 4th Infantry also seized 162 hand grenades, nine rocket-propelled grenades, 10 AK-47 assault rifles, four blocks of dynamite and a heavy machine-gun.

US officials blame die-hard Saddam loyalists and foreign Arab fighters for a guerrilla campaign against American troops that has killed 53 soldiers since Washington declared major combat over on May 1.

They say attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated -- and increasingly deadly.

US soldiers in Tikrit said that if they tracked down Saddam they wanted to capture him alive.

“Clearly we'll be going in to take him alive to extract the maximum intelligence,” Lieutenant Jason Price of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, said in Tikrit.

Saddam’s sons Uday and Qusay, and Qusay's teenage son Mustafa, were killed on July 22 when US troops pounded their hideout in the northern city of Mosul with attack helicopters, heavy machine-guns, grenades, and anti-tank missiles.

They were buried on Saturday in the village of Awja on the outskirts of Tikrit, where Saddam was born.

The US-led administration in Iraq had delayed releasing the bodies for several days, contrary to Muslim tradition that stipulates corpses must be buried as soon as possible after death.

Paul Bremer, the US governor of Iraq, told a news conference on Saturday that it was only a matter of time before Saddam was found.

Washington has put a $25 million price on his head, and says it has already paid out $30 million to the man who betrayed Uday and Qusay.

But Saddam remains on the run, and Arab television networks have broadcast several taped messages purportedly recorded by him, exhorting Iraqis to fight a holy war to expel US troops.