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US arrests 400 in raids across Iraq

A schoolgirl is checked by a female US soldier in Baghdad, Iraq, yesterday. PHOTO: AP

The US military said yesterday it had detained nearly 400 people in Iraq as part of an operation to root out armed resistance, as the George W. Bush administration faced new questions over its weapons of mass destruction claims.

The arrests were part of Operation Desert Scorpion, which began Sunday, and came amid continuing guerrilla-style attacks on US forces following the war that ousted Saddam Hussein from power.

Sergeant First Class Mayra O'Neil said troops had conducted 36 raids in Tikrit and Kirkuk, north of the capital, and detained 215 people. In the Baghdad area, they conducted 11 raids and detained 156 individuals.

The military has also confiscated banned heavy firearms and lighter weapons, O'Neil said.

Meanwhile, US Central Command announced the death of a US soldier in an "apparent non-hostile incident" in the Taji area, just north of Baghdad. The soldier's identity was being withheld until the family could be notified.

The latest death takes to 49 the number of American soldiers killed in attacks or accidents since US President George W. Bush declared the war in Iraq effectively over on May 1.

There was also an explosion Monday afternoon as a taxi was passing through a tunnel beneath central Baghdad's Tayaran Square. The driver had to have part of a finger amputated, and three passengers sustained minor injuries.

US troops, who were patrolling nearby, said the blast was deliberate but could not immediately confirm its cause.

In another incident, US military police said yesterday two Iraqi men had fired two rocket-propelled grenades at patrolling US troops in the restive town of Fallujah but caused no damage or injuries.

Meanwhile, Bush angrily took aim at mounting criticism of his case for war, lashing out at those he branded "revisionist historians."

US-led forces have yet to locate conclusive evidence backing Bush's central case for war: that Saddam possessed chemical and biological weapons, pursued nuclear arms, and might one day have armed terrorists with them.

A senior opposition Democratic senator Monday accused CIA director George Tenet of discrepancies between his public statements on Iraq's suspected arsenal of banned weapons and classified information provided by his agency to UN officials.

Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the CIA failed to provide a complete list of suspected Iraqi weapons sites to UN weapons inspectors, although Tenet made public statements saying it had.

"This goes to the question as to whether or not the statements that are made by the Central Intelligence Agency are factually accurate, when they make public statements that are important," said Levin.

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