Posted on 02/27/2005 6:36:19 AM PST by Libloather
Iraqis Capture Saddam's Half Brother
29 minutes ago
By PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi security forces captured Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, Saddam Hussein's half brother and former adviser who was suspected of financing insurgents from Syria after U.S. troops ousted the former dictator, the government said Sunday.
In a statement, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's office said the arrest "shows the determination of the Iraqi government to chase and detain all criminals who carried out massacres and whose hands are stained with the blood of the Iraqi people, then bring them to justice to face the right punishment."
South of Baghdad, Iraqi forces found four headless bodies dumped on a farm, and a fifth headless corpse in the capital, officials said. A bomb exploded inside headquarters of police in the northern town of Hammam Alil, killing five people. And the U.S. command announced a U.S. Marine was killed Saturday during military operations in central Babil province.
Al-Hassan is No. 36 on the list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis released by U.S. authorities after troops invaded Iraq in March 2003, and one of only 12 remaining at large. He is also suspected of financing insurgents in the post-Saddam era, and Washington had put a US$1 million bounty on his head.
The government statement said he had "killed and tortured Iraqi people." It also said he had "participated effectively in planning, supervising, and carrying out many terrorist acts in Iraq."
Officials in Allawi's office, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed al-Hassan's capture but gave no details on where it took place or when. Capt. Ahmed Ismael, an intelligence officer in the Interior Ministry, said Sabawi was detained early Sunday.
It was not immediately known whether U.S. troops played any role in the arrest. The U.S. military had no comment.
Under Saddam, al-Hassan served as head of the dreaded General Security Directorate, which was responsible for internal security, especially cracking down on political parties that opposed Saddam. Al-Hassan had been accused of torturing and killing political opponents when was head of the body. He later became a presidential adviser, the last post he held in the former regime.
Besides the list of the 55 most wanted, al-Hassan is among the 29 most-wanted supporters of insurgent groups in Iraq, according to U.S. Central Command.
In December, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi accused Syria of harboring senior officials from Saddam's ousted regime, including al-Hassan. Qassem Dawoud, Iraq's minister in charge of national security, claimed that al-Hassan was supporting insurgents in Iraq from Syria, according to remarks published last year in Kuwait's Al-Rai Al-Aam daily.
Al-Hassan's capture was the latest in a series of arrests the government hopes will deal a blow to the insurgency.
"This is a great achievement for the Iraqi security forces," National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie told Dubai's al-Arabiya TV. "It is also a lesson for others to give themselves up to the Iraqi authorities."
Iraqi authorities said Saturday they were close to capturing the country's most-wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida's mastermind in Iraq and believed to be behind much of the insurgent violence. One of al-Zarqawi's key aides and a man who served as his driver were arrested Feb. 20.
In the northern town of Hammam Alil, 240 miles north of Baghdad, a bomb exploded inside the police headquarters, killing five people, including some police officers, said Khorshid Sultan a coroner at the main hospital in Mosul.
In Baghdad, gunmen attacked police heading to work in a drive-by shooting in the western Amiriyah district, killing two of them, police said. Police also found the body of a dead Iraqi woman, dressed in traditional black, with a sign that said "spy" pinned to her chest.
In Latifiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad, Iraqi troops found four beheaded corpses on a farm. The four, who belonged to the Badr Organization, a wing of the main Shiite political group, the Supreme Council For the Islamic Revolution, or SCIRI, had been kidnapped earlier Saturday as they drove to the holy Shiite city of Najaf, Yassin said.
The Badr Organization replaced the former Badr Brigade, SCIRI's armed wing, which was dissolved after a government order to disband militia groups last year.
In other arrests, Iraqi National Guardsmen said they captured 15 alleged insurgents Saturday in a series of raids in Musayyib, about 50 miles southwest of Baghdad, said Capt. Sabah Yassin, a Defense Ministry official.
Yassin said the 12 Iraqis and three Syrians confessed to being members of the insurgent Ansar al-Sunnah Army, which has claimed responsibility for attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces, including a December suicide bombing that killed 22 people, most of them Americans, at a U.S. military mess tent at the northern city of Mosul.
Yassin said the 15 were found with weapons and CD's showing beheadings.
Iraqi authorities are keen to promote the message they're making headway against insurgents. Several Syrians have reportedly been captured, and earlier this week, state television broadcast what it said were confessions by Syrian-trained militants.
According to the U.S. Central Command, only 11 of the 55 most-wanted remain at large following al-Hassan's capture.
Saddam's two other half brothers, Barzan and Watban, were captured in April 2003 and are expected to stand trial along with Saddam at the Iraqi Special Tribunal. Both appeared before the special court in Baghdad with Saddam and a handful of others to hear preliminary accusations against them.
Freedom tastes sweet, huh? It appears the Iraqis are getting the hang of this Democracy bizness.
That's a remarkable achievement.
The Syrians knew where he was all along. This just an effort by the Syrians to appease the Americans.
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