Battles rage across Saddam heartland where guerrillas resist US occupation

American troops said yesterday that they had killed 27 Iraqis who ambushed a tank with rocket-propelled grenades north of Baghdad, bringing to 97 the number of "subversives" killed in two days of clashes.

Seventy Iraqis were said to have been killed in a US operation against an alleged terrorist training camp 90 miles north-west of Baghdad, in a battle that started on Thursday.

The number of attacks on US forces north and west of the capital has risen sharply in recent weeks. Although President Bush has declared major combat in Iraq is over, some 40 American soldiers have been killed since the beginning of May. At that rate, American casualties since the war may soon exceed those suffered during the war itself.

The US has launched two operations this week to try to stop sporadic guerrilla attacks in the Sunni Muslim heartland north of Baghdad. Some of the resistance is being stoked by leaflets ­ one of which may have been written by Saddam Hussein himself ­ that have called for armed resistance against the US occupation.

In the tank attack, guerrillas fired rocket-propelled grenades at a patrol of the 4th Infantry Division in Balad, a farming town of 20,000 people, 60 miles from Baghdad. A US statement said: "The tanks returned fire, killing four of the attackers and forcing the remainder to flee. Tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, reinforced with AH-64 Apache helicopters, pursued the enemy personnel, killing 23 of the attackers."

No American soldiers were killed or injured in the attack, in which the attackers sprung from a thicket of reeds on an isolated rural road.

It is not clear how many Iraqi casualties really were fighters. In rural areas, Iraqi civilians invariably own weapons, which may include rocket-propelled grenade launchers and machine-guns. "A man in Iraq does not think he is really a man unless he has a gun, the bigger the better," said one Iraqi observer. In an indication of growing US anxiety about the number of attacks, some 4,000 American troops have been searching an area north-east of Balad during the past five days in "Operation Peninsula Strike". It is the biggest single operation against guerrillas since Baghdad fell.

In another operation, a US military spokesman said the 101st Airborne and special operations units had attacked a "terrorist" training camp near Haditha in north-west Iraq, after an Apache helicopter was shot down on Thursday. One US soldier was wounded. The two-man crew of the helicopter were both rescued. Some 70 to 80 Sam-7 shoulder-held anti-aircraft missiles, more than 75 rocket-propelled grenades and 20 AK-47 rifles were found.

Separately, US troops arrested 74 people described as al-Qa'ida sympathisers in a raid on Thursday near the northern city of Kirkuk.

The US portrays its operations this week as "the continuous effort to eradicate Baath party loyalists, paramilitary groups and other subversive elements". But there are signs that many of the guerrilla attacks are spontaneous or in reaction to heavy-handed searches by US troops. In farming areas, Iraqis bitterly accuse US soldiers of entering women's quarters and of spying on the women with night-vision goggles.

The atmosphere remains very edgy with many Iraqis claiming there are more guerrilla attacks and heavier US losses than reported, though there is no evidence. Since the dissolution of the 350,000-strong Iraqi army by the US last month, the country is awash with weapons and men, now without jobs but trained to fight.