By Sasa Kavic
TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. warplanes and armored vehicles battered suspected guerrilla hideouts in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit on Saturday after six soldiers were killed in the shooting down of a Black Hawk helicopter.
The International Committee of the Red Cross, fearful for the safety of its staff operating in Iraq, announced it was temporarily shutting its offices in Baghdad and Basra.
In a new attack by insurgents in the volatile town of Falluja, west of Baghdad, two U.S. soldiers were killed and one wounded when a roadside bomb was detonated near their convoy.
Meanwhile in northern Iraq, the U.S. military said it had captured one of Saddam's former bodyguards near Kirkuk.
Since Washington declared major combat over on May 1, at least 149 U.S. soldiers have been killed in action in Iraq, including the six killed in Friday's downing of the Black Hawk.
Lieutenant-Colonel Steve Russell of the 4th Infantry Division based in Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, confirmed the Black Hawk had been brought down by guerrillas.
"We do believe it was brought down by ground fire," he said.
It was the third U.S. helicopter to be shot down in the last two weeks. Last Sunday a Chinook was downed west of Baghdad, killing 16 soldiers.
The U.S. response was swift.
After dark on Friday, F-16 fighter-bombers swooped over Tikrit, dropping 500-pound bombs near the crash site. Then raids were launched around the town -- a hotbed of anti-U.S. attacks.
Troops backed by armor and attack helicopters destroyed several abandoned houses which the U.S. military believed had been used by insurgents.
Major Josslyn Aberle of the 4th Infantry Division said the U.S. action was a "show of force" designed to destroy hiding places in the area for guerrillas.
OPERATION IVY CYCLONE
A U.S. Army statement said the raids were part of "Operation Ivy Cyclone," a new drive to root out guerrillas in the hostile territory around Tikrit. It said 16 people had been detained in the past 24 hours as part of the operation, and five killed.
Three were shot dead after U.S. troops moved in on a position where Iraqis had been firing rockets, one was killed in a gun battle near the town of Balad, and one Iraqi was also killed after he fired on troops who caught him trying to string a decapitation wire across a road, the Army said.
The U.S. military also said it had seized a large cache of mortars and rocket-propelled grenades hidden in a tomb in Samarra, which lies between Baghdad and Tikrit.
It added the 101st Airborne Division had recovered seven surface-to-air missiles in Dohuk in Kurdish northern Iraq.
In an early morning raid south of Kirkuk, the U.S. Army said one of Saddam's ex-bodyguards had been grabbed.
"Iraqi and coalition forces conducted the raid after obtaining information that indicated the individual has been involved in anti-coalition attacks in recent weeks," it said, adding he was apprehended without incident.
RED CROSS CLOSES OFFICES
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it had decided temporarily to shut its offices in Baghdad and the southern city of Basra due to security concerns.
"We are still discussing what to do with our foreign staff. The situation is extremely dangerous and volatile," ICRC spokesman Florian Westphal said.
On October 27, suicide car bombers attacked the ICRC and three police stations in Baghdad, killing at least 35 people.
Following the August truck bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad and a string of other attacks on foreign targets, many international organizations have left Iraq.
In another blow to U.S. efforts to get more countries to share the burden of policing Iraq, Turkey confirmed it had reversed a decision to send thousands of troops to the country.
Turkey's parliament voted last month to approve the deployment, but the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council strongly objected. Turkey is a former imperial power in Iraq and has uneasy relations with the country's Kurds.
Iraq's interim Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari -- a Kurd -- welcomed the Turkish decision.
"I think the Iraqi people, all of them, would welcome Turkey's decision as wise and rational," he told Reuters.
