Saddam Hussein’s chief deputy, who has eluded capture since the US-led invasion of Iraq three years ago, purportedly called for Arab leaders to back Iraq’s Sunni-backed insurgency, in an audiotape broadcast today.

Iraqi police arrested eight Sunni Arabs for allegedly plotting to kill the judge who prepared the indictment of Saddam Hussein, the day before the ousted leader’s trial for crimes against humanity resumes.

The courtroom will be the same but uncertainty surrounds nearly everything else as the trial of Saddam Hussein resumes today after a five-week recess.

THE first prosecution witnesses are expected to testify today as the trial of Saddam Hussein resumes.

Four aid workers, including two Canadians, have been kidnapped in Iraq, a Canadian official said tonight, while Iraqi police have arrested eight Sunni Arabs for allegedly plotting to assassinate the investigating judge in the case against Saddam Hussein.

Iraqi police have arrested eight Sunni Arabs in the northern city of Kirkuk for allegedly plotting to assassinate the investigating judge who prepared the case against Saddam Hussein, a senior police commander said Sunday.

IRAQI Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said yesterday that foreign fighters regularly slip into Iraq from Syria and called on authorities there to do more to stop them as five US troops were killed.

Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the highest-ranking figure from Saddam Hussein’s regime still at large, died today, according to unconfirmed reports.

A MASSIVE car bomb exploded on the outskirts of Fallujah yesterday, killing seven US Marines and wounding several others in the deadliest attack on Americans since May.

A massive suicide car bomb blast on the outskirts of of the Iraqi city of Fallujah today killed seven US marines in the deadliest attack on Americans since May.

Medical tests have shown that a man being held in Iraqi custody is not Saddam Hussein’s deputy, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri.

Iraqi officials struggled today to clear up confusion over whether the most wanted member of Saddam Hussein’s ousted dictatorship had been captured in a shoot-out north of Baghdad.

IRAQI authorities claimed yesterday 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 defence minister said it was “baseless.”

Iraqi authorities were conducting DNA tests to confirm the identity of Saddam Hussein’s former second-in-command, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, captured in northern Iraq today.

Saddam Hussein’s former second-in-command, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, has been arrested in northern Iraq, an Iraqi defence ministry said today.

US forces moved a step closer to the most wanted man in Saddam Hussein’s regime yesterday, detaining his four nephews in a pre-dawn raid and capturing another top fugitive thought to be a paymaster in the anti-coalition insurgency.

US soldiers have seized four relatives of the man America believes is masterminding attacks against its troops, in early morning raids today.

US soldiers have arrested dozens of rebel suspects, including several associates of a former aide to Saddam Hussein who is believed to have a leading role in Iraq’s insurgency.

Using sledgehammers, crowbars, explosives and armoured vehicles, US forces smashed down the gates of homes and the doors of workshops and junkyards in Samarra to attack the Iraqi resistance that has persisted despite the capture of Saddam Hussein.

An owner of the farm where Saddam Hussein was captured once served as a guard at a presidential palace, but had no idea the Iraqi dictator was hiding on his land, his wife said.

Saddam Hussein is being compliant but unhelpful to his American interrogators who have made little progress in gaining information as to whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or ties to al-Qaida terror, officials said today.

US troops have arrested at least 20 insurgents in a raid in northern Iraq, but they failed to capture their main target – Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a former Saddam deputy and the King of Clubs in the most wanted list.

AMERICAN troops carried out a raid near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk yesterday but a military spokesman denied that a top former deputy of Saddam Hussein was captured during the operation.

US troops arrested the wife and daughter of a top Saddam Hussein deputy suspected of masterminding attacks on US troops, and a major pipeline linking northern Iraqi oilfields to the country’s biggest refinery was ablaze today.

A CLOSE confidant of Saddam Hussein, whose daughter is the widow of one of the deposed dictator's sons, is believed to be working with an al-Qaida-linked terrorist group to co-ordinate attacks in Iraq.

A man close to Saddam Hussein is believed to be helping co-ordinate attacks on American forces with members of an al-Qaida-linked terrorist group, a senior US defence official said.

American soldiers arrested a suspected former Ba’ath Party official in northern Iraq today as three American soldiers were killed in separate attacks.

Iraq’s UN ambassador during the dying days of Saddam Hussein’s regime now says that his government deserved to be overthrown and that he would accept a trial for the former dictator.

Iraq’s ambassador to the United Nations has made an abrupt U-turn after weeks of swaggering rhetoric, claiming he has “no relationship” with Saddam Hussein and “no communication” with his regime.

US ambassador John Negroponte walked out of a UN Security Council debate today after his Iraqi counterpart accused Washington of trying to exterminate Iraqi people.

A summit of Muslim leaders from around the world degenerated into chaos today as an Iraqi official hurled insults at his Kuwaiti counterpart.

Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix has ordered Iraq to destroy dozens of its missiles with ranges that violate UN limits, and gave Baghdad a March 1 deadline to begin the demolition.

The chief UN weapons inspectors will return to Baghdad on February 8 for last-minute talks before their next Security Council report on the hunt for banned weapons in Iraq, Iraqi and UN officials said today.

American officials are to check Iraq’s report on its weapons programmers against US intelligence information that suggests Saddam Hussein has hundreds of tons of chemical weapons, the ability to produce biological weapons and an active nuclear weapons programmed.

Saying it wanted to save the Iraqi people from a new war, Saddam Hussein’s government accepted a tough new United Nations resolution and the return of international weapons inspectors, but called the terms unjust and illegal.

BIDDING to head off an attack by the US, Saddam Hussein yesterday accepted unconditionally a tough new UN resolution that will see weapons inspectors return to the country for the first time in nearly four years.

IRAQ'S UN ambassador blasted President George W Bush's speech to the General Assembly yesterday, saying it lacked credibility and was motivated

Iraq has accepted the terms of a new UN Security Council resolution and will resume oil exports.