Posted on 08/06/2003 6:14:28 PM PDT by saquin
TIKRIT, Iraq - U.S. forces captured a suspected leader of Saddam Hussein's loyalist militia and three other suspects during pre-dawn raids early Thursday, the military said.
The suspected leader allegedly organized cells and paid and armed guerrilla fighters for attacks on U.S. forces in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, said Lt. Col. Steve Russell, commander of the 22nd Infantry Regiment's 1st Battalion, which carried out the raids.
Also among those captured were two former Iraqi generals suspected of organizing guerrilla attacks nationwide. Russell declined to name any of the suspects.
Thursday's raids resulted from a series of tips from residents who told soldiers that the suspects had held a meeting and then helped pinpoint their locations, Russell said.
As Apache attack helicopters circled above, about 100 soldiers backed by four battle tanks, eight Bradley fighting vehicles surrounded a suspected hotel, in the raid witnessed by The Associated Press. They brought 39 men out from the building and neighboring tenements.
The soldiers questioned them and released most of them.
"If you fight against your government, we will hunt you down and kill you," Russell told the freed men through an interpreter.
When your own government has brutalized and killed your loved ones, your own government is your known enemy.
Thank you, friends of America.
"If you fight against your government, we will hunt you down and kill you," Russell told the freed men through an interpreter.I think Russell was speaking on behalf of the New Iraqi governing council and was pressing home the point that all Ba'athist acts were now un-Iraqi and un-patriotic. And besides, if anyone commits them, "we will hunt you down and kill you".
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