Officials believe Saddam alive in Tikrit

TIKRIT, Iraq -- Resistance forces killed one American soldier and wounded two others Monday in a grenade attack in Tikrit, where the U.S. military said it believes Saddam Hussein has been hiding out and influencing the anti-U.S. insurgency. Another soldier was killed by a land mine blast north of here.\n"We have clear indication he has been here recently," Maj. Troy Smith told reporters in this central Iraqi city, the fugitive ex-president's hometown and now headquarters for Smith's 4th Infantry Division. "He could be here right now," he said of Saddam.\nThe insurgents' attacks on U.S. occupation forces averaged 22 a day in the past week, the U.S. military reported Monday in Baghdad. That's an increase of several a day over the pace of some weeks earlier, and has resulted in American deaths at a rate of almost one every two days.\nMonday's attack took place when assailants fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a U.S. Army patrol in this Tigris River city 90 miles north of Baghdad. In the earlier incident, Sunday night, a 1st Armored Division soldier was killed and another was slightly wounded when their Bradley armored vehicle struck a mine near Beiji, 30 miles farther to the north.