Orlando Sentinel (Florida) October 14, 2003
Attacks Kill 3 More Americans; Arrests Made In Suicide Blast
TIKRIT, Iraq -- Saddam Hussein is thought to have been hiding out recently in Tikrit, influencing the anti-American insurgency, the U.S. military said Monday, as fresh attacks by resistance forces across central Iraq were reported to have killed three American soldiers and wounded five others.
"We have clear indication he has been here recently," Maj. Troy Smith, a deputy brigade commander, said of Saddam in Tikrit, the fugitive former president's hometown and now headquarters for the 4th Infantry Division. "He could be here right now."
The two most recent suicide bombings and virtually all other attacks on American soldiers and Iraqis were carried out with explosives and materiel taken from Saddam's former weapons dumps, which are much larger than previously estimated and remain, for the most part, unguarded by U.S. troops, allied officials said Monday.
The U.S. military now says Iraq's army had nearly 1 million tons of weapons and ammunition, as opposed to the 650,000 tons that Gen. John Abizaid, the senior American commander in the Persian Gulf region, estimated two weeks ago.
The officials said they were receiving intelligence about the attacks -- who is carrying them out and where they are getting their munitions -- from a variety of sources. Among the most fruitful, they said, have been would-be bombers who were stopped before carrying out their missions.
ARRESTS IN BOMBING
Meanwhile, officials of the American-led occupation said arrests were made in connection with Sunday's bombing in the heart of Baghdad, when an explosives-packed car detonated short of its target, a hotel housing Americans and officials of Iraq's interim ruling council.
The blast killed six and wounded dozens. No details were given on the arrests.
The insurgents' attacks on U.S. occupation forces averaged 22 a day in the past week, the U.S. military reported Monday in Baghdad.
That's an increase of several a day over the pace of some weeks earlier and has resulted in American deaths at a rate of almost one every two days.
Smith, executive officer of the 4th Infantry Division's 1st Brigade, said Saddam is thought to be exerting some control over anti-U.S. guerrilla attacks around Tikrit.
If he isn't in Tikrit at the moment, Smith said, "at the least, he is maintaining a strong influence in the area."
He didn't elaborate on intelligence information leading the military to conclude Saddam has been in the Tikrit area, but he expressed confidence in the quality of the information.
"Where else would he go to?" he said.
"He has family and tribal roots here."
Some other key regime figures still at large could be in the Tikrit area, Smith said.
Of the 55 Iraqis on the coalition's most-wanted list, 38 are in custody, 14 are at large and three are dead or thought to be dead.
Iraqis say resisters probably also include others, men resentful of the foreign army's presence and perhaps seeking to avenge kinsmen's deaths at American hands.
But the U.S. military says Saddam's Fedayeen militia and his most loyal supporters are apparently financing and organizing the attacks.
VARIOUS ATTACKS
The attacks late Sunday and Monday, against 4th Infantry Division troops, took place in Tikrit and at locations north and east of the city, according to the U.S. command:
At 7:45 p.m. Sunday, one division soldier was killed and another wounded when their Bradley armored vehicle struck a mine near Beiji, 30 miles north of Tikrit.
At 11:15 a.m. Monday, a division convoy traveling near Jalyula, in a desolate area 80 miles east of Tikrit, was ambushed with a makeshift roadside bomb and small-arms fire. One soldier was killed and two were wounded.
Two hours later, in this Tigris River city 90 miles north of Baghdad, attackers struck a Bradley on patrol with a rocket-propelled grenade, killing one soldier and wounding two others.
In another clash typical of Iraq's low-intensity conflict, 101st Airborne Division troops in the northern city of Mosul came under rocket-propelled grenade fire Monday night and returned fire, killing one of their attackers, the division reported.
PUSH FOR NEW RESOLUTION
At the United Nations, the United States pushed for a new Iraq resolution with a draft that gives Iraq's Governing Council until Dec. 15 to submit a timetable for holding elections and writing a new constitution.
Early reaction to the draft was mixed, and there were new snags in the drive to get more troops and aid to Iraq.
On aid, American officials say they hope they will be able to secure a few billion dollars at a conference later this month in Madrid to avoid this donors' session being seen as a fiasco.
But they say the donations would pour out more generously if the United Nations could pass a resolution on Iraq.
The European Union on Monday agreed to put up a little more than $200 million, far less than the several hundred million dollars that Washington is hoping to elicit from European nations in Madrid.
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Deposed leader's hometown. Two Iraqi detainees sit handcuffed Monday in a U.S. Army truck in Tikrit, Iraq, as they are transported for interrogation. Saddam Hussein is thought to have been hiding out recently in Tikrit.
ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
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MAP: Tikrit
Palace 1
Palace 2
Palace 3
Former presidential compound
SOURCES: GlobalSecurity.org, The Associated Press
KNIGHT RIDDER TRIBUNE
© Copyright 2003, Sentinel Communications Co.
