Fresh attacks by resistance forces across central Iraq's guerrilla country were reported to have killed three American soldiers and wounded five others.

"We have clear indication he has been here recently," Major Troy Smith, a deputy brigade commander, told reporters in Tikrit on Monday, the fugitive president's hometown and now headquarters for the 4th Infantry Division.

"He could be here right now," he said of Saddam.

The insurgents' attacks on US occupation forces averaged 22 a day in the past week, the US military reported in Baghdad on Monday.

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.

The attacks late Sunday and Monday, against 4th Infantry Division troops, occurred in Tikrit and at locations north and east of here, according to the US command: In another clash typical of Iraq's low-intensity conflict, 101st Airborne Division troops in the northern city of Mosul came under rocket-propelled grenade fire on Monday night and returned fire, killing one of their attackers, the division reported.

- Nampa-AP

World News Headlines Of The Last 48 Hours

•  India security chief resigns after Mumbai attacks
•  Religious clashes kills hundreds in Nigeria
•  Cheeky thief steals Thanksgiving dinner
•  Zim offers free graves as cholera spreads
•  Zim parties agree on constitutional amendment
•  Protesters wounded in Thailand explosions
•  Obama to nominate Clinton as Sec of State
•  Obama to nominate Clinton as Sec of State
•  Late workers, students get notes blaming NY subway
•  Obama as role model for black youth? Not so fast
•  Somali pirates reach deal on ship
•  Some patients confuse lives with reality shows
•  100 missing after boat accident