http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/24/iraq/main541815.shtml

Raids In Iraq Nab Fighters

Dec. 22, 2003

(CBS/AP) Acting on intelligence gleaned from the capture of Saddam Hussein, U.S. troops pursued dozens of suspected rebels in a third day of pre-dawn raids Monday in strongholds of the deposed president, officials said. A third Iraqi died overnight in a raid.

Meanwhile, in Baghdad, a roadside bomb exploded near a U.S. military convoy, killing two American soldiers and an Iraqi translator, the military said. Two other soldiers from the 1st Armored Division were wounded.

One of those detained in the U.S. raids. is a former Iraqi general suspected of recruiting ex-soldiers to attack American forces, the military said. Ex-army Gen. Mumtaz al-Taji was found Sunday night in a house in Baqouba, about 30 miles north of Baghdad.

In Samarra, a 70-year-old man died when U.S. troops put a bag over his head and prepared to detain him. Neighbors said Mehdi al-Jamal died of fright, apparently a heart attack.

He was the third Iraqi to die since the U.S. military Friday night intensified the hunt for rebels that began in earnest in the days after Saddam's Dec. 13 capture. A 60-year-old woman was killed Sunday when soldiers blasted open the reinforced steel door of their home. Another Iraqi was killed during an airborne raid in Jalulah.

In other developments:


As the United States went to high terror alert, so did troops in Iraq, reports The New York Times. The military is on the lookout for possible attacks timed for around the Christmas holiday.


Thousands of Kurds protested in Kirkuk to demand the important oil-rich city be made part of an autonomous territory for Kurds, a Sunni Muslim minority who comprise about 20 percent of the population of 25 million. Several minorities have claims on Kirkuk, which Saddam kept out of the autonomous Kurd province because of its oil wealth.


Iraq's higher education minister reported the U.S. military detained three scientists from the University of Technology in Baghdad for questioning about their role in "military industrialization programs," a reference to weapons of mass destruction. The scientists were still in custody.


When it comes to the recent U.S. campaign for debt relief for Iraq, top creditor Japan is keeping its hands on its wallet so far. While war critics France, Germany and Russia have voiced support for reducing Iraq's crushing debt burden, Japan — owed $4.54 billion — has been quiet on whether it's willing to join the effort.


Over the weekend, rebels firing rocket-propelled grenades hit gas storage tanks in southern Baghdad and a pipeline feeding gas to the capital, creating fires that burned millions of gallons of gasoline, said Assem Jihad, a spokesman for the Oil Ministry.

Iraq's oil resources are crucial to rebuilding its infrastructure, but years of deterioration under sanctions and acts of sabotage since the war have hampered production. That has led to the ironic site of long gas lines atop the second largest deposit of petroleum in the world.

Authorities put out flyers in Baghdad threatening to try and jail black marketers contributing to a fuel crisis: "The black market is an illegal way of selling and distributing fuel … those caught shall be liable to punishment."

The flyers cited new laws providing for confiscation of the goods, fines of double the value of the goods and jail sentences of three to 10 years.

U.S. troops patrolling in tanks, Humvees and Bradley armored vehicles imposed curfews and roadblocks and went house to house, smashing through doors to surprise residents in a search for guerrillas and weapons to stem attacks on members of the U.S.-led military occupation and Iraqis working for the coalition.

Towns targeted are Fallujah, the town west of Baghdad where the resistance began; Samarra, 75 miles north of Baghdad; Jalulah northwest of the capital and Rawah, near the western border with Syria, where troops dubbed the raids "Operation Santa Claws."

Gen. Richard Myers, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said hundreds of suspects have been rounded up and tied the detentions to Saddam's capture.

"Some of the information we gleaned when we picked up Saddam Hussein led to a better understanding of the structure of the resistance," he told the Fox News TV program on Sunday.

Saddam was arrested Dec. 13 near his hometown of Tikrit, and the U.S. military has said soldiers also seized a briefcase containing documents that shed light on the anti-U.S. insurgency. The CIA is interrogating him in Iraq; Iraqi officials say the former dictator is in the Baghdad area.

"The only word I have is that he's not being cooperative," Myers said.

The U.S. military said it was searching for "terrorists," senior members of Saddam's Baath party and "people who finance, supply and organize resistance to the coalition," according to Lt. Col. Henry Kievenaar, who was directing the Army's 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Rawah.


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