US pounds Saddam hometown

US warplanes, in a swift response to the downing of another American helicopter, bombed targets in Iraq yesterday for the first time since President George W. Bush declared major combat over on May 1.

The US offensive came as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it was temporarily shutting its offices in the Iraqi capital and the southern city of Basra because of safety concerns. A car bombing in the Red Cross headquarters in Baghdad last month killed 12 people.

The US Army said the air strikes targeting suspected guerrilla hideouts in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit was a "show of force" after insurgents killed six soldiers when they shot down a Black Hawk helicopter on Friday.

As the American military reported the deaths of two more of its soldiers in a bomb attack in Iraq, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told a news conference in Baghdad that Iraq was still a "war zone".

"We are involved in an insurgency, and that's pretty close to war," Armitage said.

And in a grim reminder of Saddam's decades-long dictatorial rule, Iraqi and American rights investigators told a conference yesterday they had identified 260 mass graves containing the bodies of at least 300,000 Iraqis murdered by his regime.

In yesterday's new attack by insurgents in the volatile town of Falluja, west of Baghdad, two US soldiers were killed and one was wounded when a roadside bomb was detonated near their convoy.

Meanwhile, the US Army said it had caught one of Saddam's former bodyguards near Kirkuk and troops captured 12 people suspected of involvement in a deadly attack on a Baghdad hotel where US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying.

Brigadier General Martin Dempsey, commander of the US Army's 1st Armoured Division, said the suspects appeared to have links to Saddam's regime.

Attackers fired rockets on October 26 into the Rasheed hotel, inside the compound of Iraq's US-led administration, killing a US military officer and wounding 15 other people.

Since May 1, 149 US soldiers have been killed in action, including the six killed in Friday's downing of the Black Hawk.

Lieutenant Colonel Steve Russell of the 4th Infantry Division based in Tikrit, 175 km north of Baghdad, confirmed the Black Hawk had been brought down by guerrillas.

"We do believe it was brought down by ground fire," he said. The US Army said it was not clear what had hit the Black Hawk but that surface-to-air missiles had been ruled out.

It was the third US helicopter to be shot down in the last two weeks. Last Sunday a Chinook was downed west of Baghdad, killing 16 soldiers.

The US air strikes came after dark on Friday, when F-16 fighter-bombers swooped over Tikrit, dropping 500-pound bombs near the crash site. Then raids were launched around the town - a hotbed of anti-US attacks.

Troops backed by armour and attack helicopters destroyed several abandoned houses which the US military believed had been used by insurgents.

The US Army said the raids were part of "Operation Ivy Cyclone", a drive to root out guerrillas around Tikrit. It said 16 people had been detained in 24 hours and five killed.

Three of those were shot dead after US troops moved in on a position where Iraqis had been firing rockets.

The US military also said it had seized a large cache of mortars and rocket-propelled grenades hidden in a tomb in Samarra, which lies between Baghdad and Tikrit.

It added the 101st Airborne Division had recovered seven surface-to-air missiles in Dohuk in Kurdish northern Iraq.

The ICRC announced the temporary closure of its Baghdad and Basra offices, and spokesman Florian Westphal added:

"We are still discussing what to do with our foreign staff. The situation is extremely dangerous and volatile."

But the Italian arm of the Red Cross said its 32-strong staff would remain in Iraq.

On October 27, suicide car bombers attacked the ICRC and three police stations in Baghdad, killing at least 35 people.

Following the August truck bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad and a string of other attacks on foreign targets, many international organisations have left Iraq.