Ali Hassan al-Majid, a feared cousin of Saddam Hussein nicknamed "Chemical Ali" for overseeing poison gas attacks that killed thousands, has been captured in Iraq, the US military said yesterday.
"We do have him and he was captured alive," US Central Command spokesman Lieutenant Ryan Fitzgerald said.
No details were released on the arrest of Majid, number five on a US list of the 55 most-wanted Iraqis and the King of Spades in a US Army deck of cards depicting fugitives.
His capture, and the detention earlier this week of Saddam's vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, will fuel US hopes that its forces are closing in on Saddam himself.
The commander of the 4th Infantry Division, which is leading the hunt for Saddam around his hometown of Tikrit, said troops swooped on a house in Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, on Wednesday night after receiving information that Saddam-the Ace of Spades in the US deck-was there.
"We found some relatives and associates but he was not there," Major General Raymond Odierno told reporters at his base in one of Saddam's former palaces in Tikrit.
The United States has offered $25 million for information leading to the capture or proof of death of Saddam. The deposed dictator's sons Uday and Qusay were killed last month in a US raid on their hideout in the northern city of Mosul. US and British forces bombed Majid's house in early April in Basra, where he had been sent by Saddam to lead the defence of southern Iraq. British military officials said then that Majid had been killed and that they had recovered his body.
"Obviously he was not there and if he was, he survived the attack," Fitzgerald said.
Majid was a ruthless member of Saddam's clan who played a leading role in the violent suppression of Iraq's Kurdish and Shi'ite Muslim rebels and the seven-month occupation of Kuwait.
He was best known for leading the campaign against Kurdish rebels who took advantage of Iraq's war with Iran in the 1980s to step up their long struggle for autonomy in northern Iraq.
Human rights groups say Majid's scorched earth policy led to the murder or disappearance of some 100,000 Kurds and the forced removal of many more. Some 5,000 people were killed in a single gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja in March 1988.
Odierno said he believed Saddam was hiding in the "Sunni triangle" region, north of Baghdad where attacks on US troops have been most frequent.
"He will have to continue to move on a routine basis, or else we will catch him," Odierno said. "I believe he is moving around the Sunni triangle area. That is my opinion."
US forces said yesterday they had also arrested General Rashid Mohammad, a senior commander of the Fedayeen guerrillas blamed for many attacks on US troops, at a checkpoint near Baquba northeast of Baghdad on Wednesday.
Mohammad was carrying a guerrilla "shopping list" when arrested, with items including weapons, ammunition, computers, telephones and requests for funding jotted down on a note in his wallet. He also had a list of 10 Iraqi names that US forces described as an assassination list.
Since major combat ended on May 1, 63 US soldiers have been killed in guerrilla attacks in Iraq.