The US general leading the hunt for Saddam Hussein around the fugitive ex-dictator's home town said on Thursday that Saddam was on the run, wearing a disguise and moving frequently to evade American patrols.
"He's on the run. He's moving every three to four hours," Major General Ray Odierno told a news conference at the 4th Infantry Division headquarters in one of Saddam's lavish former palaces by the banks of the River Tigris in Tikrit.
"He is clearly moving three to four times in a single day," Odierno said, citingintelligence reports. "My guess is he's in disguise some way, in unassuming clothes."
The 4th Infantry Division has mounted frequent raids around Tikrit, hunting Saddam loyalists and guerrilla
fighters who have killed 53 US soldiers since Washington declared major hostilities over on May 1. A US civilian contractor was also killed by a land minejust north of Tikrit on Tuesday.
Officers in Tikrit said they had seized three suspected guerrilla leaders in night raids early on Thursday.
One man arrested overnight after 39 men were turned out of a workers' hostel, handcuffed and questioned by soldiers may have been a "nationallevel Fedayeen leader," funding and arming resistance to the US occupation beyond Tikrit itself, raid commander Lieutenant Colonel Steve Russell said.
The man may also be linked to an attempted attack nearby on US forces 24 hours earlier, he said, when troops shot a man who they said was about to fire a rocket-propelled grenade.
The two others were believed to have been generals under Saddam and were detained in separate raids at an undisclosed village south of Tikrit, 105 miles north of Baghdad. About a dozen other people there were still being questioned.
In Tikrit, as Abrams tanks and armored vehicles sealed the area and helicopters clattered overhead in the dark, troops charged up stairways, banging on doors. They made men kneel in the street, heads down and hands cuffed behind their backs with plastic ties. Interpreters handled the flow of questions.
The targeted suspect was taken away blindfolded and the 38 others held at the city hostel were released.
"As we cast a wide net for sharks, we catch dolphins too," Russell said. "And we apologize."
On Wednesday, the 4th Infantry
said raids north of Baghdad had netted 18 Saddam loyalists and a large arms cache, and the previous day Iraqi police seized a brother of Adnan Abdullah Abid al-Musslit, a close personal bodyguard of Saddam's family who was himself arrested around Tikrit a week ago.
Washington says it wants to put a democratic Iraqi government in place as soon as possible and then end its widely resented occupation. Last month it appointed a 25-member Iraqi Governing Council as an initial step toward self-rule.
The Council says it plans to set up a committee soon that will oversee the drawing up of a new constitution -- a key precondition for elections. It also plans to name ministers within a week, one of the council members told Reuters.