BAGHDAD, June 12-Iraqi guerrillas shot down a U.S. attack helicopter today as American troops continued to search several areas of central and western Iraq for forces loyal to ousted president Saddam Hussein, U.S. military officials said.
The two-person crew of the AH-64 Apache gunship was quickly rescued by U.S. ground troops as another Apache continued to fire on the Iraqis. The crew members, both from the 101st Airborne Division, were uninjured.
U.S. military officials refused to give the location of the incident, which coincided with a pre-dawn air and ground assault on what officials described as a "terrorist" camp about 90 miles northwest of Baghdad. Foreign fighters were at the camp, an old Iraqi military installation, said the officials, who provided no other details.
Today's combat, along with ongoing searches for former members of Hussein's intelligence services, military and militias and raids on arms caches and arrests in other parts of the country, provided fresh evidence that U.S. military operations are accelerating. Eight U.S. troops have been killed during the past two weeks in central and western Iraq, an area that U.S. commanders have identified as a stronghold of several groups bent on disrupting the American occupation.
Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, commander of the occupation troops, said it will "take some time" to wipe out the continued "presence of regime loyalists." He repeated an assertion he made last week that attacks on U.S. forces are not part of a broader, planned resistance. He predicted a cycle of "action, reaction and counter-reaction" as U.S. troops try to end the repeated ambushes that have claimed American lives.
"It's an adaptive enemy. We've seen more sophisticated methods of attacks on coalition forces, and we in turn will adapt our tactics," McKiernan told reporters in Baghdad. "Iraq is still considered a combat zone."
McKiernan offered an upbeat assessment of security in southern Iraq, declaring the area "stable and secure." However, he cautioned that "there are still subversive elements trying to gain traction in the south, be they political or paramilitary." U.S. officials have expressed concern that Iran is funding a militia known as the Badr Brigade to "meddle" in Iraqi affairs.
In the far north, McKiernan said, the cities of Mosul, Kirkuk and Irbil were "doing well."
The efforts to root out Hussein loyalists in western and central Iraq are covering areas that until recently had attracted little attention from U.S. troops. In Thuluya, a lush, oasis-like town on the Tigris River northwest of Baghdad, soldiers continued to search motorists at checkpoints and to patrol in armored vehicles. The activity was part of Operation Peninsula Strike, which began Monday with raids on two dozen houses in Thuluya and the detention of nearly 400 residents. At least 100 have been released, U.S. officers said.
At one checkpoint at a bridge leading into Thuluya today, a soldier warned a visitor: "Be careful, sir. There are a lot of bad guys here." At another checkpoint, troops led three men away in plastic handcuffs. Bradley Fighting Vehicles, Humvees and trucks guarded both checkpoints.
The streets of Thuluya were largely deserted in the searing summer heat. The Americans have imposed a 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew. Residents say that in the first, intense 36 hours of Operation Peninsula Strike, which began around midnight Monday, anyone found on the streets was arrested. Released detainees said they were asked their names, professions, marital status and whether they possessed weapons. They were also asked if they had connections to the Fedayeen Saddam paramilitary militia, Hussein's Baath Party or religious or resistance organizations.
Residents complained of brutality during the house-to-house searches. One resident, Qahtun Abdoun, said U.S. soldiers shot and killed Hashem Mohamed Ani, 15, who had picked up a gun and tried to shoot the intruders.
At his news conference, McKiernan declined to discuss Iraqi casualties. No Americans were reported killed in the operation.
Mohamed Kanoush Hamed, a retired Iraqi general, was among those detained in the operation. The gate to his large house had apparently been rammed open by a military vehicle. The windshield of a Toyota Crown sedan was shattered. Inside his bedroom, a brown briefcase lay open and papers were scattered across a bed. All the cabinets were open.
A relative, Naji Hussein Kanoush, complained: "We thought Bush had promised the Iraqi people friendship with the Americans. With these operations, hatred has grown in our hearts."
The area is known for enthusiastic support of the Hussein government, and officials in the nearby town of Balad said many inhabitants of Thuluya belonged to his multi-layered security agencies. One elderly man, Ibrahim Ali Hussein, 60, told a visitor: "To tell the truth, I liked him."
McKiernan pinpointed Baqubah, about 30 miles north of Baghdad, as another trouble spot. U.S. soldiers there said that patrols and convoys suffer small-scale attacks almost nightly. "The nighttime belongs to the bad guys," said Capt. Kelly Uribe, whose 324th Military Police Battalion is working to train and patrol with Iraqi police.
Soldiers from the 2nd Brigade of the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division, camped at a dusty airfield near Baqubah, said patrols have run into increasingly elaborate ambushes. "They use flashlights or shots in the air to tip hostile elements of our approach," said Maj. Gary Brito. "Hardly a night goes by without something."
Units in Baqubah have rounded up dozens of suspected "subversives," Brito said, but "no big fish."
"It's a race against time," he continued. "We are trying to keep the ball rolling until the Iraqis can take care of themselves, until the aid agencies can come in, until peacekeepers can take over. The hostile elements want to stop that progression."
Correspondent Anthony Shadid in Thuluya contributed to this report.
