Two of the Iraqi civilians killed during the U.S. raid

BAGHDAD, July 28 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – U.S. elite troops killed late Sunday, July 27, five Iraqi civilians in a raid on a house in the wealthy Baghdad neighborhood of Mansour, where they believed ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was holing up, while U.S. troops stormed three farms in the northern Iraqi town of Tikrit to capture Saddam's new head of security. 

"American troops entered my home thinking they would find Saddam Hussein, and searched everywhere but found nothing," said the house owner, Sheikh Amir Rabiha Mohammed al-Shammar, a relative of the toppled President.

However, a U.S. army officer outside the building, Major Kevin West, said: "We responded to the fire. That's all I can tell you," Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The Americans sealed off the area and later withdrew, towing away four cars, one of them burnt out.

An angry crowd gathered outside the house in the up market district of the capital after the raid which involved Task Force 20 troops.

In a separate operation, U.S. forces missed Sunday capturing Saddam Hussein's security chief - and perhaps the former Iraqi leader himself - by only 24 hours in a raid in the northern town of Tikrit, military officials told Britain's Sky News channel.

The officials did not give the name of the man who was the target of the raids, but said they believed he was in charge of security for Saddam since the June 17 arrest of Saddam's presidential secretary, Abid Hamid Mahmud.

However, the commander of U.S. occupation forces in Iraq, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, dismissed as "speculation" reports that U.S. troops missed capturing Saddam.

"The 24-hour story, that's speculation. I'll tell you that we are focused on Saddam Hussein. We've got to make the assumption that he is alive in order for us to prove to the Iraqi people that he is going to be taken care of," Sanchez told CNN.

"He remains a critical target for us. It is important that we find him, one way or another. And our mission is to kill or capture him... and we'll accomplish that mission," the US army commander said.

The U.S. hunt for Saddam, buoyed by the deaths of Saddam's two son last week, received a fresh boost Friday, July 26, with the capture of several of the toppled leader's bodyguards in a raid just south of Tikrit.

The new British envoy to Iraq Jeremy Greenstock said Sunday that Saddam should be brought to trial for his crimes, not killed like his sons.

Demonstrator Killed

Meanwhile, one Iraqi was killed and three others wounded as U.S. soldiers opened fire Sunday on demonstrators in the Shiite Muslim city of Karbala, residents said.

The protest by about 300 people followed an incident late Saturday, July 26, in which a tear-gas canister fired by U.S. forces struck the mausoleum of Imam Hussein.

Residents told AFP that 15 people were detained, but that 12 of them were later released.