US lays siege to suburb of Mosul after tip-off

American forces backed by helicopters besieged a district in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul yesterday after receiving a tip-off that Saddam Hussein was hiding there.

Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite channel, reported that soldiers backed by air support moved into the al-Arabi district after receiving intelligence that Saddam was in the neighbourhood. Witnesses said that soldiers in 15 armoured vehicles checked a batch of farms in the Hawwi outskirts of Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad, as helicopters flew overhead.

"There is a heavy presence of US troops, acting on information that Saddam may be hiding in the al-Arabi neighbourhood," one resident said.

"The word in town is that Saddam is there," said another.

The BBC reported that one of its reporters saw three helicopters hovering over the property of Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-Tal, who once served as Saddam's Defence Minister.

In recent weeks the ousted dictator has reportedly been sighted dressed in an Arab robe, bearded and in sunglasses, moving from hide-out to hide-out using three cars. He has been seen eating a meal in a Bedouin home, and may even have visited a doctor's surgery in Mosul.

"This guy's Elvis," General David Patraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, said. A hot-line set up by the US Army for tips on Saddam's whereabouts has been inundated since Washington put a $25m bounty on his head.

Mosul is where Saddam's sons, Uday and Qusay, were killed in a shootout with US troops in July. It was also in Mosul that Kurdish fighters captured the former Iraqi vice- president Taha Yassin Ramadan on 18 August.

Saddam has evaded capture since he was toppled in April. Audiotapes purporting to come from him have been deemed authentic by US intelligence, suggesting that he survived the air strikes intended to kill him during the war.