October 8, 2003	Wednesday	Sha’aban 11, 1424

BAGHDAD, Oct 7: US troops backed by armoured vehicles on Tuesday sealed off a Baghdad neighbourhood, following what police said was a tipoff that former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was spotted in the area.

An Iraqi policeman said one person claimed to have seen the fugitive ex-leader in a car in the area.

An employee at the Cedar Hotel, within the area sealed off with barbed wire and several dozen armored military vehicles, said US troops asked him whether he had seen Saddam.

A Turkish guest at the hotel, Gulin Pasturk, said a US soldier deployed outside had told her Tuesday evening “Saddam was seen here 10 minutes ago.”

US forces searched the hotel, but declined to say whether they were looking for Saddam.

“We’re sealing off the perimeter, that’s all I can say,” said one of the soldiers, who would only identify himself as Staff Sergeant Stevens as the troops unrolled barbed wire between the Cedar Hotel and the Al-Rimal hotel facing it.

A large area of Baghdad’s Karada neighborhood was sealed off with residents and guests, among them several foreign correspondents, prevented from entering or leaving the area where at least 100 soldiers were deployed.

PROTESTERS SURROUNDED: Hundreds of US troops in riot gear surrounded protesters at a Baghdad mosque and helicopters hovered overhead on Tuesday after a day of confrontations with Shias over the detention of a local leader.

Around 2,000 protesters were still at the mosque on Tuesday evening as US reinforcements arrived.

Several Iraqis were arrested during the protest and one man was hit and injured by an American vehicle. Iraqi policemen and US soldiers set up checkpoints around the area.

Protesters had gathered in the morning at the Ali al-Bayaa mosque in Baghdad’s southwestern Bayaa district, waving banners saying “America = Saddam” and “What is this freedom?” They said a local cleric had been arrested by the Americans.—AFP/Reuters