Saddam razes villages suspected of harboring insurgents

NICOSIA -- Fierce clashes were reported over the weekend between Iraqi troops and opposition forces as President Saddam Hussein ordered massive retaliation against villages suspected of being involved in the unrest.

Iraqi opposition sources said troops loyal to Saddam razed a village near the site of an insurgents' ambush in which more than 40 soldiers were killed. The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq said on Saturday that a unit of the elite Republican Guard had destroyed al-Masha village near the southern town of Rumaitha, 245 kilometers [150 miles] south of Baghdad, on Thursday.

Rumaitha is in the heart of Iraq's mainly Muslim Shiite south, a hotbed of opposition to the government.

The sources also reported that Iraqi troops detained most of the villagers and imposed a curfew on Rumaitha while they conducted house-to-house searches for suspects in the town.

According to earlier, uncorroborated reports, insurgents had attacked a squad of Iraqi troops and members of the ruling Baath Party as they approached Rumaitha the previous week, killing 56 Iraqi soldiers and party members in the ambush.