One of Saddam Hussein's most feared lieutenants is
directly involved in attacks on occupying soldiers, the U.S. Army said Monday, a
day after a new audio tape purportedly from Saddam vowed more U.S. troops would
die.
Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said American forces were hunting Izzat
Ibrahim, No. 6 on a U.S. list of the 55 most-wanted Iraqis, and were "getting
closer every day."
US President Bush meets with Iraqi women
leaders, including two members of Iraq's Governing Council, in the Oval
Office at the White House in Washington, Nov. 17, 2003.
[AP]
"We are getting more intelligence that suggests he was directly implicated in
the killing of some coalition soldiers," Kimmitt told a news conference in
Baghdad.
Two more American soldiers were killed Monday in separate attacks in Saddam's
former powerbase north of Baghdad, a military spokesman said. One was killed and
two were wounded in a rocket-propelled grenade attack Monday morning. A few
minutes later, a soldier was killed in the same area by a bomb blast.
The attacks brought to 162 the number of U.S. soldiers killed in action since
Washington declared major combat over on May 1 -- not including 17 soldiers who
died Saturday when two helicopters collided and crashed in the northern city of
Mosul.
The U.S. military says the disaster is still being investigated, but soldiers
in Mosul and witnesses say the Black Hawks collided after one came under
guerrilla fire.
It was the deadliest single incident for U.S. troops since they invaded
Iraq in March to topple Saddam.
In Lebanon, a group calling itself Mohammad Army claimed responsibility
Monday for the downing of a U.S. Chinook helicopters in Falluja on November 2 in
which 16 American soldiers were killed.
ANTI-AIRCRAFT MISSILE
In a videotape broadcast on Lebanon's LBC television station, a hooded man
carrying a Koran said the helicopter was shot down by a Soviet-made Strella
shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missile. He claimed the death toll was much
higher than announced.
The man, who spoke in Arabic but in an accent that indicated he was not
Iraqi, said the movements of helicopters in the area had been monitored for 10
days before the incident.
There was no way of verifying the claim.
Dubai-based Al Arabiya television broadcast an audio tape on Sunday said to
be from Saddam. The voice on the tape exhorted Iraqis to drive occupying troops
from their country.
"Fighting them...is a legitimate, patriotic and humanitarian duty and the
occupiers have no choice but to leave our country...as cursed losers," it said.
It was the first broadcast in two months of a tape purportedly recorded by
Saddam. The ousted Iraqi leader has been missing since the war and has a $25
million price on his head.
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said it was not clear whether the
tape was genuine.
"The quality of the recording was poor and after an extensive CIA technical
analysis, it is inconclusive as to whether or not it is the voice of Saddam," a
spokesman said.
Ibrahim, King of Clubs in a deck of cards issued to U.S. troops to help them
identify fugitive Iraqis, is the most senior Iraqi still on the run aside from
Saddam himself.
He was considered one of the most ruthless enforcers of Saddam's rule and one
of the former Iraqi president's most trusted confidants. His daughter was
briefly married to Saddam's elder son Uday -- killed in July along with his
brother Qusay when U.S. troops stormed a safehouse in Mosul.
NO. 2 IN COMMAND COUNCIL
Ibrahim was Saddam's number two in the ruling Revolutionary Command Council
and held a senior post on a government committee in charge of northern Iraq when
chemical weapons were used against the town of Halabja in 1988, killing
thousands of Kurds.
Facing mounting losses in Iraq, the U.S. Army is trying new tough tactics,
using aerial bombing and satellite-guided missiles for the first time since the
end of major combat to target suspected guerrilla hideouts.
Before dawn Monday, U.S. troops unleashed tank and mortar fire at targets in
Saddam's hometown of Tikrit.
Soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division fanned out through the town, and the
ground shook as shells hit positions which commanders said were used by
guerrillas to fire rockets or mortar bombs at the U.S. base in the town.
"For us this is not a display, we want to get the enemy," said 1/22 Battalion
commander Lieutenant-Colonel Steve Russell. "The message is: 'Give up, it's
over."'
Flares lit up the sky and attack helicopters clattered overhead. In one
attack, four M1A1 Abrams tanks perched on top of a desert cliff fired on targets
in the fields below.
Sunday, two satellite-guided missiles were fired at suspected guerrilla
camps, one near Tikrit and one on an island in a river west of Kirkuk.
U.S. soldiers also mounted a search of the notorious Abu Ghraib area west of
Baghdad, looking for insurgents.
Describing his instructions to troops on the raid, Colonel Russ Gold,
commander of the 1st Armored Division's 3rd Brigade, said: "Be professional, be
polite and be prepared to kill them.."
