Crowds greet US Marines who stormed town in the search for 'Chemical Ali'

Hundreds of Iraqis shouting "Welcome to Iraq" greeted US Marines who entered the town of Shatra yesterday after storming it with planes, tanks and helicopter gunships.

A foot patrol picked its way through the small southern town, 20 miles north of the city of Nasiriyah, after being beckoned in by a crowd of people. "There's no problem here. We are happy to see Americans," one young man shouted.

The welcome was a tonic for soldiers who have not always received a warm reception despite the confidence of US and British leaders that the Iraqi people were waiting to be freed from Saddam Hussein's repression. "It's not every day you get to liberate people," said one delighted Marine.

As they searched the town, the Marines pushed back the excited crowd. An interpreter urged local people through a loudspeaker on a Humvee not to hinder their movements.

Among the targets of the dawn raid in Shatra was Ali Hassan al-Majeed, known as Chemical Ali, who is believed to be responsible for a poison gas attack that killed up to 5,000 Kurds in Halabja in 1988.

Marine officers said they had intelligence from anti-Saddam Iraqis that Mr Majeed was in Shatra with other senior officials in the ruling Baath party who were co-ordinating paramilitary forces that have ambushed US supply convoys and slowed the advance on Baghdad.

One reporter with the US Marines said his unit had retraced its steps back south down Highway 7 to Shatra to deal with hostile forces that had been bypassed on their rapid advance.

He added: "US planes dropped precision-guided bombs on four targets in Shatra. Tanks and armoured personnel carriers then moved in force to the edge of the town while Huey helicopter gunships raked the rubble-strewn target sites with heavy machine-gun fire."

The targets in Shatra were the local Baath party headquarters and "associated planning sites". Another Baath party building across the street had been set ablaze by looters who carried away sofas from inside. Captain Mike Martin, a Marine company commander, said: "We believe there are about 200 to 300 Baath party loyalists and Saddam Fedayeen irregulars in the town."

A senior military spokesman confirmed that Mr Majeed had not been found in yesterday's attack in Shatra but that the search for him was "ongoing".

In 1987 he was made chief of the Baath party in northern Iraq, entrusted with suppressing an uprising among the Kurdish minority. A year later he is believed to have ordered nerve and mustard gas attacks on scores of villages, including Halabja.

He was caught on tape referring derisively to Kurdish civilians. At a meeting with Kurdish leaders he is supposed to have rejected suggestions that his offensive had claimed 182,000 lives, adding: "It couldn't have been more than 100,000."

When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 Mr Majeed was appointed governor of the occupied country. Hundreds of Kuwaitis remain missing.

When the Shia majority rose up after the 1991 Gulf War, President Saddam made him Interior Minister and ordered him to crush the revolt. He is said personally to have kicked and punched Shia prisoners and selected some of them for execution.

A high-ranking US officer said last night: "Chemical Ali is running about in the south. He is in charge in the south. He is the guy who was also responsible for some of the worst atrocities in Kuwait."