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| Former Iraqi Vice Chairman of the Revolutionary
Command Council, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, is seen during a cermony in Baghdad
in this Dec. 1, 2002, file photo. Al-Douri, Saddam Hussein's former second-in-command,
was arrested in northern Iraq, Saleh Sarhan, an Iraqi Defense
Ministry spokesman told al-Hurra television.(AP) |
Iraqi authorities claimed on Sunday to have
captured Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the most wanted member of Saddam
Hussein's ousted dictatorship, but there was confusion over the report, as
the Iraqi defense minister said word of his arrest was "baseless
."
There have been incorrect reports of al-Douri's arrest in the past as
U.S. and Iraqi forces hunt for the man who was once one of Saddam's most
senior deputies. Sunday's report centered on a raid near al-Douri's
hometown of Adwar, north of Baghdad.
Iraq's top information official said al-Douri was
seized while receiving medical treatment at a clinic near Adwar and that
DNA tests were underway to confirm his identity. Al-Douri reportedly
suffers from leukemia
, and needs blood transfusions.
"We are sure he is Izzat Ibrahim," information official Ibrahim Janabi
said. "He was arrested in a clinic in Makhoul near Tikrit and Adwar and 60
percent of the DNA test has finished."
Later, however, the Iraqi defense minister, Hazem Shaalan, said in an
interview with Lebanon's Al Hayat-LBC television that reports that Izzat
Ibrahim was captured were "baseless."
"We don't have any information on this subject or on the reports that
allegedly came out from the defense ministry," he said.
"They are baseless. There are search operations by the national guards
troops and multinational troops going on during which some terrorist
positions were shelled. There were rumors that Izzat al-Douri or someone
who resembles him were in that position but we don't have any information
on Izzat specifically," he said.
U.S. Maj. Neal O'Brien of the Tikrit-based 1st Infantry Division said
he could not confirm the report and U.S.-led forces issued a statement
saying he was not in U.S. custody. A senior U.S. diplomat, speaking on
condition of anonymity, said the Americans had no information to indicate
that al-Douri had been arrested.
Iraqi Minister of State Qassim Dawoud also claimed that al-Douri was
arrested and said 150 men defending him also were detained.
Meanwhile, a mortar barrage Sunday evening hit a U.S. base on the
western edge of Baghdad, killing two U.S. soldiers and wounding 16 others,
one critically, Maj. Richard Spiegel of the Army's 13th Corps Support
Command said.
The soldiers killed and wounded all belonged to the 13th Corps Support,
which oversees distribution of fuel, food and water to U.S. forces. As of
Friday, 976 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military
operations in Iraq in March 2003, according to the Defense Department.
Al-Douri, once the vice chairman of the Baath Party's Revolutionary
Command Council, is the most prominent member of Saddam's inner circle who
had not been captured or killed. U.S. military officials believe he played
an organizing role in the 16-month-old insurgency.
He is No. 6 on the U.S. military's list of 55
most-wanted figures from Saddam's regime - the king of clubs in the deck
of cards - and U.S. forces have offered a $10 million bounty
for his arrest. Forty-four of the people on the list already have been
killed or captured.
(Agencies) | 
Updated: 2004-09-03 15:27