TIKRIT, Iraq -- Iraqi security forces backed by more than 2,000 U.S. troops carried out a series of massive raids near the northern city of Kirkuk on Tuesday as the search for alleged insurgency leader Izzat Ibrahim continued, defense officials said.
Two dozen suspected guerrilla fighters were apprehended in the large-scale sweeps that began around 4 a.m. and lasted until after nightfall. But officials dismissed reports that Ibrahim was among those detained. An unusually large force from the 173rd Airborne Brigade accompanied an undisclosed number of Iraqi police and members of the nation's new Civil Defense Corps on the raids, said Master Sgt. Robert Cargie, a spokesman for Task Force Iron Horse, which is being led by the 4th Infantry Division.
Military officials said the raids were based on intelligence reports suggesting that Fedayeen Saddam fighters loyal to ousted President Saddam Hussein had gathered in Kirkuk. U.S. efforts against insurgents, which until recently had been focused in the so-called Sunni Triangle stretching from Baghdad west to Fallujah and north to Tikrit, have now expanded northward to Kirkuk and Mosul.
Last week, Ibrahim's wife and daughter were arrested near Samarra, not far from Tikrit, and 4th Infantry Division officials had said they hoped to glean intelligence on the ex-general's whereabouts from them.
Initial reports from the Iraqi Governing Council said Ibrahim, one of Saddam's closest aides, had been captured or killed in yesterday's operations. But Task Force Iron Horse officials later said Ibrahim was not among those arrested.
The Pentagon has announced a $10 million reward for his capture, dead or alive. Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, said recently that intelligence reports indicated that Ibrahim, the most-wanted former regime leader other than Saddam, was financing or possibly even directing attacks that U.S. military officials acknowledged had become increasingly coordinated.
Iraqi insurgents set off a roadside bomb yesterday south of Samarra, killing a U.S. soldier in a Humvee, the military reported. On Sunday, Samarra was the site of the biggest urban street fight in Iraq since the fall of Baghdad; military officials said 54 insurgents were killed after they launched bold, simultaneous attacks on U.S. military convoys.
Eleven insurgents were detained in Sunday's clashes, and by yesterday the task force had arrested 20 more suspected anti-coalition fighters in the area. But areas farther north, where attacks appear to have intensified, also were drawing increasing attention from U.S. military officials.
In Baiji, 25 miles north of Tikrit, soldiers from the 173rd Airborne were ambushed during a patrol Monday by attackers lined up along both sides of a road. The assailants fired at least eight rocket-propelled grenades and directed small-arms fire at the soldiers, who were patrolling in Humvees, said Lt. Col. William MacDonald, a senior spokesman for the task force. None of the grenades hit their mark, and no U.S. soldiers were killed, MacDonald said. There was no word on enemy casualties.
Several miles west of Kirkuk, an AH-64 Apache helicopter crew killed three men who ignored an order to drop their automatic weapons and turned their guns toward the chopper late Monday, MacDonald said.
In Baghdad, workers yesterday began demolishing gigantic bronze busts of Saddam Hussein.
Workers using a construction crane started dismantling the 13-foot busts of Saddam from his former Republican Palace, now the headquarters of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority.
It was unclear how long the work would take.
Meanwhile, relatives of U.S. troops visiting Iraq pressed their agenda to meet with leaders of the occupation authority, hoping to voice their opposition to the U.S.-led occupation.
One mother held back tears while looking at U.S. soldiers guarding the entrance of the Habbaniyah military base in Baghdad.
"They are so young. This is not for them. ... They look just like my boy," said Annabelle Valencia, whose daughter, 24, and son, 22, are both based in Iraq.
Also yesterday, U.S. and Iraqi officials said the U.S. civilian and military leadership in Iraq has decided to form a paramilitary unit comprised of militiamen from the country's five largest political parties to identify and pursue insurgents who have eluded American troops and Iraqi police officers.
The five parties will contribute a total of 750 to 850 militiamen to create a new counterterrorism battalion within Iraq's Civil Defense Corps that would initially operate in and around Baghdad, the officials said. They said U.S. Special Forces soldiers would work with the battalion, whose operations would be overseen by the American-led military command here.
The party leaders regard the formation of the paramilitary force, which had initially been resisted by the occupation authority, as an acknowledgment that the Bush administration's strategy of relying on Iraqi police officers and civil defense forces has been insufficient to restore security. The leaders contend Iraq's municipal police departments and civil defense squads are too ineffective to combat resistance fighters.
Although the new battalion is significantly weaker than the force the party leaders had hoped to create, the unit would nevertheless give the five political organizations an unrivaled role in the country's internal security. That advantage has riled some independent members of Iraq's Governing Council, who fear it could be used after the American occupation ends to suppress political dissent or target enemies.
"This is a very big blunder," said Ghazi Yawar, an independent council member. "We should be dissolving militias, not finding ways to legitimize them. This sends the wrong message to the Iraqi people."
U.S. officials said the battalion would be subject to rigorous conditions aimed at ensuring that the new unit does not become a collection of autonomous militias loyal to their party leaders instead of a unified commander.
