AMERICAN military commanders in Iraq yesterday predicted the capture of Saddam Hussein “any day now” after a surge in tip-offs from informants hungry for a slice of the $25 million bounty on his head.

The boast came after American soldiers narrowly missed catching Saddam’s security chief, and possibly the former dictator himself, when they raided three houses near Tikrit, the former dictator’s ancestral home, where he was said to be hiding.

Last night US soldiers from Task Force 20, a special unit hunting Saddam, raided a villa in central Baghdad, killing five Iraqis and wounding eight others.

The man appointed as Britain’s new envoy to Iraq said that Saddam should be caught alive. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who leaves his role as United Nations Ambassador to take up the Baghdad posting in September, said that the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein, Saddam’s sons, in a battle last week was a “genuine success” for the US-led coalition in Iraq.

He told the BBC1 programme Breakfast with Frost: “We have now got to get the father. I would like to see him brought before a court, but that is in the hands of the military team looking for him. I would say it is quite important to do that.”

An Iraqi policemen said that all the victims of the attack on the villa in Baghdad had been in cars driving through the area at the time. There was no sign of Saddam at the villa.

Its owner, Rabeeah Amin, a tribal chief, said: “I was told they had been tipped off that Saddam was hiding in my house, that he was my guest, but I know nothing about this.”

Earlier, hundreds of troops, backed by Apache helicopters and Bradley fighting vehicles, stormed farmhouses outside Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit shortly before dawn after receiving a tip. Iraqis told the military that the security chief they were seeking had been in one of the houses but had left before the raid.

“We missed him by 24 hours,” Lieutenant-Colonel Steve Russell, who led the operation, said. Nonetheless, commanders hailed the raid as evidence that troops were closing in on Saddam after the killing of his sons, Uday and Qusay, a week ago.

“They’re running out of places to hide, and it’s becoming difficult for them to move because we’re everywhere,” Colonel James C. Hickey, a brigade commander, said. “Any day now we’re going to knock on their door, or kick in their door, and they know it.”

Paul Wolfowitz, the US Deputy Defence Secretary, said that it was only a matter of time before an informant provided the crucial tip-off about Saddam. “It takes time for them to trust us to give us the information,” he told NBC television, “but they’re giving us more and more. I think what happened last week with the deaths of those two miserable creatures (Saddam’s sons) is encouraging more people to come forward.”

The Americans would not name the security chief targeted in the raid yesterday, saying only that he was believed to have taken over after the arrest last month of Abid Hamid Mahmud al- Tikriti, Saddam’s cousin.

The Bush Administration says that it expects to pay $30 million to the man who revealed the whereabouts of Uday and Qusay. Richard Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said: “We look forward to being able to pay the reward, just as we’ve said we would.”

Paul Bremer, head of the coalition’s civilian administration in Iraq, has promised informants not only cash but also protection.

Plea for bodies

Ezzedine Muhammad Hassan al-Majid, Saddam Hussein's second cousin, has asked the US military to release the bodies of Uday and Qusay Hussein for burial.

The request was made in a letter to Paul Bremner, the US administrator in Iraq, and aims at an orthodox Muslim burial at the Hussein family cemetary in Tikrit, Saddam's birthplace.

Mr al-Majid, whose wife and children were killed by forces loyal to Saddam said in his letter: "They are, despite what injuries they have put me and my family and the Iraqis through, nothing less than corpses."

The bodies of Uday and Qusay have been held at a makeshift mortuary at Baghdad international airport.

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