Top Saddam aide captured

Iraqi and US forces arrested a man believed to be the most wanted Saddam Hussein aide still on the run in a bloody raid in which 70 of his supporters were killed and 80 were captured, Iraqi officials said yesterday.

Izzat Ibrahim al Douri, who was sixth on a US list of the 55 most wanted members of Saddam's administration and had a $10 million price on his head, was captured in Tikrit, Saddam's former powerbase north of Baghdad, the Defence Ministry said.

Officials said DNA tests were under way to confirm his identity.

The US military said Ibrahim was not in its custody, and it had no information on whether he was being held by Iraqis.

Iraqi Minister of State Wael Abdul al-Latif said it was "75 to 90 per cent certain" the man was Ibrahim. Seventy of the man's supporters were killed and 80 were captured when they tried to prevent him being seized, said Latif.

He said Arabs from outside Iraq had been among the people protecting the man, who was suffering from leukaemia.

"He's in a very deteriorated state of health," said Mr Latif. The US military says Ibrahim has been directly involved in organising and funding attacks on US forces since the toppling of Saddam in April last year. In a deck of cards issued to US troops to help them identify fugitives, Ibrahim was the King of Clubs.

The news spread fast in Baghdad, and in some Shi'ite Muslim districts residents fired AK-47s in the air in celebration.

"He is the symbol of the former regime," said retired civil servant Abbas al-Kabbi, 50. "It is the end of a bloody criminal regime."

Ibrahim was Saddam's number two in the Revolutionary Command Council and held a senior post on a government committee in charge of northern Iraq when chemical weapons were used against the town of Halabja in 1988, killing thousands of Kurds.

The red-haired Ibrahim was born in 1942 near Tikrit, some 160 kilometres north of Baghdad, the son of an ice seller.

Ibrahim was one of Saddam's top aides and most trusted confidants.

His daughter was briefly married to Saddam's elder son Uday, bonding him within the ruling elite.

The top five on the US most wanted list, including Saddam, his sons Uday and Qusay, and "Chemical Ali" Hassan al-Majid, have already been captured or killed.