Soldiers of elite Delta Force prepare to hunt down Baghdad's 'dirty dozen'

Teams of American special forces are preparing to hunt and kill Saddam Hussein and his inner circle, USA Today reported yesterday, quoting a senior Pentagon official.

Members of the elite Delta Force, the US equivalent of the SAS, are ready to storm President Saddam's palaces and attack official convoys. They have been ordered to capture or kill the leader, his sons Qusay and Uday, and 12 other senior figures dubbed "the dirty dozen". "The expectation is to kill him within days," the official said. "It's what Delta has been training 24/7 to do."

The Ministry of Defence refused to comment on whether SAS teams would be taking part in the missions.

The CIA is believed to have been secretly preparing the hunt-and-kill missions for several years but intelligence sources admit that America and Britain do not yet have the specific intelligence needed to find President Saddam.

He may move underground once any bombing starts, using a network of tunnels and bunkers underneath Baghdad to escape Allied troops and missiles. He may also try to move anonymously through the countryside. During the Gulf War in 1991 he moved every day to avoid 250 Allied air strikes on "leadership targets".

He is protected by nearly 30,000 special security forces and is thought to have at least three body doubles to deceive any pursuers.

American officials hope that monitoring how he uses satellite and mobile phones will provide clues to his location. "Tracking a tyrant as concerned about his personal security as Saddam is challenging, to say the least," said the Pentagon adviser, Mike Vickers. "One either has to have an intelligence break on his movement that is actionable, or maintain continuous surveillance on him, which is very unlikely."

Officially, capturing or killing President Saddam is not one of Britain and America's objectives. President George Bush's ultimatum on Monday left open the possibility of him and his immediate family leaving Iraq within 48 hours. But, once fighting has started, an implicit war aim will be to quickly capture or kill the inner core of the Iraqi leadership.