US troops have rounded up dozens of suspected rebels during two days of raids in Iraqi towns where loyalty to the deposed president Saddam Hussein remains strong.
Troops went house to house in Fallujah, a centre of resistance west of Baghdad, yesterday. Troops of the Army's 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment blockaded Rawah, near the western border with Syria, for a sweep dubbed "Operation Santa Claws", the US Army said.
Rawah was put under a night-time curfew, while the towns of Samarra, 75 miles north of Baghdad, and Jalulah, north west of Baghdad, were also targeted.
Soldiers arrested 60 Iraqis for questioning and were seeking more than 100 senior members of Saddam's Baath Party and rebels the military calls "terrorists", said an army spokesman.
In one of the Rawah raids, a 60-year-old woman was killed when soldiers blasted open the reinforced steel door of her home.
Troops patrolling in tanks, Humvees and Bradley armoured vehicles seized dozens of AK-47 assault rifles and several rocket-propelled grenade launchers. They were searching for more arms and "people who finance, supply and organise resistance to the coalition", the army spokesman said.
Gen Richard Myers, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said several hundred Saddam loyalists had been rounded up in recent raids. They include "some of the leadership of this insurgency, absolutely, some of the cell leaders", he said.
Gen Myers tied the recent arrests to Saddam's capture. "Some of the information we gleaned when we picked up Saddam Hussein led to a better understanding of the structure of the resistance from the former regime elements," he said.
Saddam was arrested on December 13th near his home town of Tikrit, and the US military has said soldiers also seized a briefcase containing documents that shed light on the anti-US uprising. The CIA is interrogating him in Iraq. Iraqi officials say the former dictator is in the Baghdad area.
AP