There is absolutely no truth to this nonsense.
Posted on 09/05/2004 2:26:09 PM PDT by TexKat
AD-DAWR, Iraq (AFP) - A man believed to be Saddam Hussein's most wanted henchman Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri was in Iraqi custody, the prime minister's office confirmed, following conflicting reports over whether the near-18-month hunt for the feared fugitive was over.
Iraqi experts were conducting DNA tests late Sunday to establish beyond doubt that the longtime Saddam number two was finally behind bars, Prime Iyad Allawi's spokesman Taha Hussein told AFP.
The announcement came after a top Iraqi national guard commander had poured scorn on reports from both subordinates and the interior ministry that Ibrahim was to be brought to justice alongside his erstwhile boss.
Interior ministry and national guard officers said Ibrahim had been seized in a deadly gunbattle following a tip-off he was receiving medical treatment at a clinic near his and Saddam's Tikrit hometown.
But US commanders declined to confirm that the suspected insurgent financier they had sought for so long was in custody at last as boasted by their Iraqi counterparts.
Residents of this bastion of Saddam loyalism certainly appeared to believe that US-backed forces had found their elusive quarry, nine months after the ousted president himself was captured hiding down a hole in the same village.
An AFP correspondent saw shopkeepers downing shutters among other signs of mourning in an area that still has huge nostalgia for Saddam's regime.
It was the national guard commander for the Tikrit area, Colonel Abdullah Juburi, who announced Ibrahim's capture in a bloody battle around an Ad-Dawr doctor's clinic.
The sickly, 62-year-old former number two had gone there for a blood transfusion enforced by longstanding leukaemia, when he was surprised by US-backed national guard officers, Juburi told AFP.
Ibrahim's supporters put up ferocious resistance, Juburi added.
An interior ministry spokesman put the casualty toll from the ensuing gunbattle as high as 70.
However Juburi's immediate superior -- Major General Ahmed Khalaf Salman who commands the whole of north-central Iraq -- disavowed his subordinate's account.
"Our forces did not take part in any operation and did not capture Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri and we do not have any information concerning the subject," he said.
It is certainly true there have been previous claims of Ibrahim's capture which later turned out to be unsubstantiated.
But equally US commanders might well have wanted to keep under wraps any suggestion such a prized intelligence asset was in friendly hands, or keep for themselves the announcement of such a major coup against their insurgent foes.
Asked to clarify the confusion over his earlier announcement that Ibrahim was indeed in national guard custody, interior ministry spokesman Colonel Adnan Abdelrahman said: "Call the defence ministry because these are the people who told us this story."
Defence ministry officials were not immediately available for comment.
For its part, the US military said Ibrahim was not in its custody.
A senior officer said he had no record of US troops supporting any capture operation and added that US commanders had received no formal notification from the Iraqis.
"They cannot confirm we had helicopters in the air or we were in a joint operation to capture him," said Rear Admiral Greg Slavonic.
Only Al-Qaeda's alleged Iraq commander Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi is more sought-after than Ibrahim, who has had a 10-million dollar US bounty on his head since as long ago as last November.
US commanders have long accused Ibrahim of using Saddam's vast caches of hard currency to bankroll the insurgency that has dogged their troops virtually since his downfall.
They also charge that Ibrahim has used his reputation as a devout Muslim to forge an unholy alliance with the Islamic militants they hold responsible for some of the deadliest attacks.
Amid the conflicting reports over Ibrahim's whereabouts, US and Iraqi forces pressed some of their most aggressive counter-insurgency operations in months.
US troops battled rebels in the northern town of Tall Afar for a second day while a combined force arrested 500 suspected militants in the heartland of the Sunni Muslim insurgency.
Iraqi police and national guardsmen, assisted by US forces, raided the town of Latifiya, 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of Baghdad, marking the first time the interim government had taken decisive action against Sunni insurgents since it took full powers in late June.
Twelve policemen were killed and 17 people wounded in the operation, with 500 suspected "terrorists" arrested and a large haul of weapons seized, including five barrels of TNT, an Iraqi intelligence officer said.
The town is part of a virtual no-go zone for US troops, Iraqi police and foreigners and has earned the name "Fallujah's second head" after the Sunni rebel strongold west of Baghdad.
The spot is where two French journalists, held by a group calling itself the Islamic Army of Iraq, disappeared on August 20.
Leading hardline cleric Sheikh Mehdi al-Sumaidaie issued a fatwa or Islamic decree demanding the immediate release of the two reporters -- Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot.
The cleric, an influential figure among Sunni militant groups, also lambasted the Iraqi government and US forces for staging the raid in Latifiya, saying it had harmed efforts for the French duo's release.
US troops and insurgents also fought for a second day in Tall Afar, which the military claims has serves as a way station for militants slipping into Iraq from Syria.
Fighting erupted after gunmen fired on a US army convoy outside the mainly Shiite Turkmen town, west of the main northern city of Mosul, police said.
US soldiers and Iraqi national guardsmen then poured into the town centre where clashes broke out lasting for about two hours before the combined force withdrew.
Elsewhere, the body of an Egyptian was found on a road north of Tikrit in the latest in a string of gruesome murders of foreigners suspected of working with the Americans in Iraq.
Two Iraqis were killed and five wounded in a US air raid near the town of Balad, another Sunni insurgent bastion, medics said.
Two US soldiers were later killed and 16 wounded in a mortar attack in the same region, the US military said.
Kaslin.....I MEANT NOT .....
Sheessssshh......I give up.
aka: Red O'Head
Good question.
I'd like somebody to ping me if Izzy is confirmed (by Centcom) in jail or dead (preferably the later). Thanks.
We still have power, yippee.
5.56mm
hang in there!
we understand you .....we think
thank god for FR. Everytime I switch to CNN (Sorry-No FOX in Kanuckistan!!)all I see is Hurricane Frances. Keep the news flowing guys.
You are not alone Dog.
I think I'll wait before I start celebrating.
But it's still possible that the news is being hushed until after the hurricane is over.
No problem.
I need to proofread better...
I have FNC and all I got yesterday and today was Francis
Don't worry, it happens
But equally US commanders might well have wanted to keep under wraps any suggestion such a prized intelligence asset was in friendly hands, or keep for themselves the announcement of such a major coup against their insurgent foes.
What I think is we have him......but need to move fast to roll up as much of his network.....before it is confirmed he is really in custody.
I'll bet there are raids taking place right now..
I remember when they thought he was dead but it turned out that he was alive and well and doing heavy damage against our soldiers and coalition forces. I hope they do have him
What I can't understand is that FNC ran the Bulletin this morning during FOX and Friends. Normally when they is a rumor out they wait until it is confirmed. It could be because the weekend Fox and Friends were on duty and all they cared about the hurricane
Strange story..
Of course we have the story that the Guardsman made fabriqued all of this.... Which is really a little strange...... Something is going on, and maybe it is good for our side....
Former Saddam Deputy Arrested in Iraq
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Today: September 05, 2004 at 19:48:00 PDT
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -
0905iraq-douri 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 told The Associated Press that 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."
A Defense Ministry spokesman, Saleh Sarhan, also told the U.S.-funded Alhurra television station that al-Douri had been captured.
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.
Saddam was arrested on Dec. 13, hiding in a tiny underground bunker near Adwar.
Dawoud, the minister of state, said the trial of Saddam and other indicted officials from his regime would start "within a few weeks ... before the end of this year and before (Iraqi) elections," which are planned for January.
Saddam so far has had seven preliminary charges filed against him, including gassing thousands of Kurds in 1988, the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, the suppression of 1991 revolts by Kurds and Shiites, the murders of religious and political leaders and the mass displacement of Kurds in the 1980s. Eleven others have also been charged, including former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz; Ali Hasan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali;" and former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan.
Late last year, al-Douri's wife and daughter were detained. Earlier this year, U.S. forces conducted numerous raids in and around the northern city of Samarra searching for him.
During raids on Jan. 14 in Samarra, American forces arrested four of al-Douri's nephews who they suspected were helping al-Douri move to avoid capture.
Also Sunday, a militant group said it had captured four Jordanian truck drivers who it claimed were delivering goods for U.S. forces in Iraq, according to a tape obtained by Al-Jazeera TV.
The station said the tape was from a group calling itself the Shura Council of Fallujah Mujahedeen.
Militants have increasingly turned to kidnapping to force coalition forces and contractors from the country. More than 100 foreigners have been abducted since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2002 and many have been executed.
In other developments:
- A car bomb exploded outside an air base used by U.S. forces near Dijiel, about 25 miles north of Baghdad, injuring one American soldier and two Iraqi civilians, the U.S. military said. Three suspects were detained near the site of the attack, said Army Sgt. Robert Powell.
- Police in northern Iraq found the body of an Egyptian kidnap victim with his hands bound and showing signs he had been badly beaten, said Iraqi National Guard Maj. Gen. Anwar Mohammed Amin.
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