U.S. Special Operations forces operating in secret have broken the Iraqi government's control over a broad swath of territory in western Iraq that extends about 200 miles into the country from the border with Jordan, U.S. military officials said yesterday.

Much of the area is lightly populated desert, but it includes several airfields and countless hiding places that U.S. military officials have worried Iraq might use to launch drone aircraft or Scud missiles against Israel, Jordan or Saudi Arabia. Its control by U.S. forces would provide not only a buffer against potential Iraqi attack but also another avenue of approach to Baghdad.

A senior official, describing the area claimed by U.S. forces, said it stretches from the border with Jordan past the Mudaysis airfield, 170 miles to the east. He said that in trying to secure the area, U.S. troops faced "some combat engagements," but he declined to provide details.

Some "pockets of resistance" may remain, he added, but forces loyal to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could no longer mount a significant challenge in the area.

"I wouldn't say we control all the area, but it is territory that Saddam no longer controls," the senior official said.

In contrast with the slog north over the past week by Army and Marine forces moving out of Kuwait, or the airlift Wednesday of Army troops parachuting into northern Iraq, U.S. operations in the west have remained shrouded in secrecy. There are indications that the troops in the west are basing some of their operations in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which are sensitive about being identified with any such activity.

Even before the formal start of the war last week, U.S. forces were reported moving in and out of Iraq, hunting for weapons sites, establishing a communications network and seeking potential defections from Iraqi military units. But with the expiration of President Bush's ultimatum to Hussein to leave power, Special Operations teams entered Iraq in force March 19, one day ahead of the launch of conventional ground operations and two days ahead of the main air campaign. The size of the U.S. contingent in the west has not been disclosed, but Pentagon officials said it numbers in the hundreds.

Initial missions included targeting Iraqi military facilities -- border observation towers, communication nodes and command posts. The U.S. troops also struck early at the two largest airfields in the west, known as H-2 and H-3, where some Iraqi helicopter units were based.

But much of the focus of the Special Operations troops, officials said, has been on hunting for Scud missiles and launch vehicles and storage sites for chemical or biological weapons. To this end, U.S. commanders have kept an array of surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft scanning the region, and strike aircraft have remained on alert to respond quickly to any targets.

"We are having very good success, we believe, in the west to limit the options of the regime on threatening its neighbors," Army Brig. Gen. Vince Brooks, deputy director operations for U.S. Central Command, told reporters in Qatar on Wednesday. "We know historically that is an area that such activities have occurred. We know that there are potential places to hide them out in that area."

Brooks showed gun camera footage of a bombing attack on a bridge. The weapon could be seen slipping under the bridge from one side and blowing up a military vehicle -- without destroying the bridge. At a Pentagon briefing later, officials showed other gun camera footage of an F-16 jet dropping a precision-guided bomb on a military vehicle said to have been spotted west of the H-2 airfield.

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