Raid nabs Saddam's man

TIKRIT - One of Saddam Hussein's "lifelong bodyguards" was captured last night with at least two other suspected Saddam associates, in a series of US Army raids in the deposed dictator's home town.

Adnan Abdullah Abid al-Musslit rarely left Saddam's side, and was frequently photographed with Saddam.

American soldiers fired two shots before charging into a home in Tikrit to grab al-Musslit.

He was escorted out minutes later, bleeding and dressed only in his underwear and a T-shirt.

"We got our prime target. This man was a close associate of Saddam Hussein," said Lieutenant Colonel Steve Russell of the US Army.

Al-Musslit resisted inside the home and soldiers had to wrestle him down, Russell said.

The others captured were Daher Ziana, head of security in Tikrit, and Rafa Idham Ibrahim al-Hassan, a leader of the Saddam Fedayeen militia.

Earlier, US soldiers found 40 anti-tank mines, dozens of mortar rounds and hundreds of kilograms of gunpowder buried in the town.

US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said yesterday that the American forces missed Saddam by just "hours".

"I think most people feel that the noose is tightening around the neck of Saddam Hussein," he said.

"Even today there were three raids and we believe we were just hours behind him."

Also yesterday, the US military said a US soldier was killed in an attack in the capital, and guerrillas blew up a bridge.

The soldier was killed when insurgents dropped a grenade on his convoy as it passed below an overpass in central Baghdad. Three other Americans were wounded.

Another American soldier was killed and one injured in a vehicle accident near the southern city of Nasiriyah.

CNN reported that US troops sifting through the wreckage of the house in Mosul where Saddam's two sons were killed found Uday Hussein's briefcase, which contained US$400,000 ($680,000) and 30 million Iraqi dinars, or about $36,300.

Uday's briefcase also contained Viagra, a condom, packaged underwear, shirts, cologne and a "tacky tie", said a Government source.

In Tikrit, US soldiers dug up the newly buried mines and weapons outside an abandoned building that once belonged to Saddam's Fedayeen militia.

"Forty mines could have caused a lot of problems for US forces here in Tikrit," said US Major Bryan Lukehe.

North of Baghdad, guerrillas floated a bomb on a palm log down the Diala River, a Tigris tributary and detonated it under an old bridge linking the northern cities of Baqouba and Tikrit, both hotbeds of support for Saddam.

US soldiers had built a pontoon bridge farther downstream and were renovating the old bridge, but closed both after the explosion.

The bomb was the first guerrilla attack on a bridge.

Bridges are especially important in Iraq, a nation born around its two major rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates.

A previously unknown militant Iraqi group vowed in a videotape broadcast by the Al Arabiya satellite channel in Dubai to continue armed attacks on US troops until they are forced to leave Iraq.

"Oh America, you have declared war on God and the soldiers of God, so brace yourself for a war from God and his Prophet and the soldiers of God," a member of the Jihad Salafi Group said in the videotape.

In Mosul, Iraqi contractors hired by the US Army began demolishing the house in which Uday and Qusay Hussein were killed.

The house was reduced to a blackened shell by US machine-guns, grenades, rockets and missiles.

With soldiers standing guard inside rolls of concertina wire, workers used jackhammers to pry off chunks of masonry.

Bystanders asked them for souvenirs, but the soldiers rejected the requests.

Armitage also suggested yesterday that Saddam should be killed without hesitation, if capturing him alive meant risking the lives of US soldiers.

The comments appeared to indicate that only surrender could guarantee survival to the former Iraqi dictator.

"If Saddam Hussein could be captured safely, without any harm to US service persons, that would be great," Armitage told CNN.

"If there is a question of harm being done to US servicemen, then he should be killed."

Armitage is the second high-ranking US official in less than a week to indicate that while the US wants to get Saddam out of the picture, it has no particular concern whether he ends up alive or dead.

Speaking in Congress last week, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said top Pentagon officials had left it to commanders in the field to decide whether to take former senior Iraqi leaders dead or alive.

"If a person is determined to fight to the death, then they may very well have that opportunity," Rumsfeld warned without specifically mentioning Saddam Hussein.

- AGENCIES

Herald Feature: Iraq