"On the location of Saddam you could as easily have asked me about any particular personality and all of you, because you know me, would have guessed the answer before I gave it and that is: Well, they're either dead or they are running like hell," Franks, the commander of US forces in Iraq, told reporters at Bagram Air Base 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Kabul.

"That is the case with the leadership of the regime inside Iraq," he said.

As US-led forces hunt for Saddam and his cohorts, Franks said the coalition in Afghanistan was also getting closer to catching al-Qaeda leader and September 11 terror mastermind Osama bin Laden.

"If someone were to ask me, do I think that forces are closer to the individuals responsible for the problems in Afghanistan or for the problems in Iraq, then my answer would be 'I suspect we're getting closer'," he said.

Franks said a number of lessons learned from the conflict in Afghanistan 18 months ago were being applied in Iraq.

"We learned here, or we confirmed I guess, in our early operations in Afghanistan a number of things which we have subsequently used in the campaign in Iraq," he said.

Those lessons were about the use of "precision kinetics" (precision bombing), Special Forces and Special Operating Forces, the provision of humanitarian aid and "greeting people with smiling faces," he said.

"As one works to take down that regime it is terribly important to be prepared to provide simultaneously humanitarian assistance to the people," said Franks.

"You're seeing the beginning of the transformation of the armed forces in our country," the four-star general said without elaborating.

In Afghanistan the United States has launched a controversial civil-military project that has been criticised by relief organisations.

The third Provisional Reconstruction Team opened in the northern town of Kunduz on Thursday with the aim of bringing stability through rebuilding programmes.

International aid agencies have hit out at the concept, likely to be applied in Iraq, for blurring the line between military action and non-military intervention, which they said would put aid workers at risk of attack by extremists.

Questioned about a firefight by Marines Thursday at a Baghdad mosque, Franks said it "was in fact in response to intelligence that indicated leadership in this general area" without saying whether US forces suspected Saddam was there.

"Our forces went to this area and were engaged by forces from the inside of that mosque. And that will continue, by the way, because we are going to keep going and we're going to keep looking, long ways to go," he said.

"My bosses have continued to say that Iraq remains a very dangerous place, well as we stand in Afghanistan, obviously Afghanistan remains a dangerous place, but we still have work to do here in Afghanistan and we have work to do in Iraq."

General Franks arrived from Qatar to pay a flying visit to Afghanistan to address coalition troops. It was his first visit since December.

Franks met with around 300 troops from some of the 53 countries who are working under the coalition command to maintain peace and help stabilise the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.

He was due to meet with Karzai and US ambassador Robert Finn before heading back to Qatar.

SPACE.WIRE