US turns heat on Iraq insurgents

The US is changing tactics

The US has launched a new operation against insurgents in Iraq, backed by hi-tech missiles, fighter jets and attack helicopters.

US forces fired a satellite-guided missile at a "guerrilla camp" about 25km (15 miles) west of Kirkuk, for the first time since major combat ended.

Operation Ivy Cyclone Two is targeting insurgents in north-central Iraq.

It comes after at least 17 coalition troops died when two Black Hawk helicopters crashed in Mosul.

Lieutenant-Colonel Bill Macdonald, spokesman for the 4th Infantry Division based in Tikrit, said the operation marked a "more aggressive" approach in the region.

It is the first time since the end of major combat that a munition of this type has been used Lieutenant-Colonel Bill Macdonald

"We want to demonstrate that we have the capability to co-ordinate operations simultaneously over a large area," he said.

Early on Monday, witnesses near Tikrit reported the ground shaking as flares continued to light up the night sky.

In Baghdad, American soldiers backed by armoured vehicles and helicopters moved into the upper-class Sunni Muslim neighbourhood of Azamiyah, searching 450 houses over seven hours.

"Of course everybody has weapons. We have all been robbed. We were afraid of the Iraqis and now we're afraid of the Americans," said Samir al-Hadith, an engineer from Saudi Arabia living in the neighbourhood.

US forces are changing tactics in response to the rising number of attacks on coalition forces - and casualties - since President Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq on 1 May.

Iraqis have also been killed in substantial numbers, with one recent estimate putting the number of deaths at more than 200 since May.

'Cursed losers'

Lieutenant-Colonel Macdonald said the guided missile - with a 500-pound warhead - was fired from a mobile launch pad just north of Baghdad on Sunday.

"It is the first time since the end of major combat that a munition of this type has been used," he told reporters.

Meanwhile, an Arabic TV station on Sunday broadcast an audio tape purported to be of ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein calling on Iraqis to wage holy war against occupying forces.

We have some determined opponents. Particularly the international terrorists who have been coming into the country in the last four or five months Paul Bremer Bremer: US faces tough fight 'Saddam tape' in full

"Fighting them...is a legitimate, patriotic and humanitarian duty and the occupiers have no choice but to leave our country Iraq, the country of Arabs and Islam, as cursed losers," the speaker said.

Responding to news of the tape, President George W Bush said: "I suspect it is the same old stuff. You know, it's propaganda, and we're not leaving until the job is done".

Iraq's civil administrator Paul Bremer - in a series of US TV interviews - said there was no doubt the US was "in a tough fight" in Iraq.

Helicopter crash

The US army is examining the wreckage of the two Black Hawk helicopters which crashed on Saturday in the northern city of Mosul.

Some witnesses said one of the helicopters was hit by ground fire and then collided with the second aircraft.

Seventeen soldiers were killed, five were injured and one is still missing after the crash, which hit 101st Airborne Division forces.

Five US helicopters have crashed in the past three-and-a-half weeks in Iraq with the loss of 39 lives.

On Saturday, the US-appointed Governing Council unveiled an accelerated timetable to transfer the country to Iraqi control, saying the coalition would hand over power to a transitional government by June 2004.

But French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said power should be handed over by the end of the year, calling the US-favoured timetable too slow.

My view is that it is too late. We need to move faster. This is an extremely urgent situation Dominique de Villepin Iraq handover too slow - France

"My view is that it is too late. We need to move faster. This is an extremely urgent situation," he said in an interview that will appear in the Monday edition of French daily La Croix.

Italy too has called for the speeding up of the transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis.

"I think that we have reached the conviction that we should accelerate our support for an immediate implementation [of the latest UN resolution on Iraq]," President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi said after holding a meeting with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Sunday.

The transitional body - selected from all sections of Iraqi society - will prepare for a full sovereign elected Iraqi government by 2005.