US captures 6 'closely tied' to Saddam

The raids around Saddam's hometown of Tikrit were targeting Iraqis suspected of involvement in attacks on US troops and helicopters, said Lt. Col. Steve Russell, a battalion commander in the 4th Infantry Division.

"The individuals are closely tied to the Saddam family and the former regime. They represent some of the last of the main network that we have been targeting for many months," Russell said without providing details.

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American forces are tracking a shadowy militant group that claimed responsibility for Sunday's back-to-back suicide bombings at Kurdish political offices in the northern city of Irbil. The attacks killed at least 109 people, including senior Kurdish politicians who were strong US allies.

A statement from a group calling itself the Ansar al-Sunna Army said it targeted the "dens of the devils" because of the Kurds' ties to the United States.

The US military believes Ansar al-Sunna is a splinter group of Ansar al-Islam, allegedly linked to the al-Qaida terrorist network.The claim could not be confirmed.

In Irbil, Muslims clerics used their Friday sermons to denounce the attacks against the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

"Islam doesn't call for killing those who are unarmed...Those who committed these two crimes do not belong to Islam regardless of whatever names they call themselves," imam Suleiman Abdullah told hundreds of worshippers in the Mustafa Naqshabandy mosque.

A US official in Washington who spoke on condition of anonymity said Ansar al-Sunna is an umbrella organization for anti-US extremists founded last September with Ansar al-Islam at its core.