BAGHDAD, Oct 30: Faced with an increasingly organized enemy and more combat deaths than during the war, US troops in Iraq started a hunt on Thursday for a former top official accused of masterminding an alliance between foreign fighters and Saddam loyalists.

The troops were searching for former general, Izzat Ibrahim al Douri, who was officially number two to Saddam Hussein and apart from the ousted president is the highest ranking Iraqi on the US most-wanted list.

“There are reports that Al Douri is coordinating the attacks,” said a US official in Washington, who spoke following a surge of bloodshed in Iraq.

In a sign anti-US attacks are growing more effective, a heavily armoured Abrams battle tank was disabled for the first time by an explosive device on Wednesday.

The blast killed two soldiers in northern Iraq, a hotbed of anti-US resistance.

Pentagon figures out Thursday showed the US death toll was now higher since Washington declared an end of hostilities on May 1 than during the six-week main offensive before that.

Hostile fire has killed 117 Americans since May 1, against 114 during the war itself, according to the Pentagon.

The attack on the Abrams tank came as officials warned that forces striking at occupation troops were getting better organized with the help of foreign fighters, in an alliance thought to be masterminded by Al Douri.

The M1 Abrams weighs 69.5 tons and is the most heavily armoured battle tank ever used by the Americans.

“If it is true that a tank was damaged to this sort of extent resulting in fatalities by a simple roadside bomb, depending on whatever size it was, that does not bode well for the future of the occupation,” said Patrick Garrett, an analyst with GlobalSecurity.Org, a private research group.—AFP