Allies blast the house of pariah ‘Chemical Ali’

THE US military yesterday said it had found the body of the bodyguard of Iraqi commander “Chemical Ali,” but Iraq dismissed reports the military chief himself may have died in an air strike.

Asked whether Chemical Ali had been killed when US forces bombed his house in the city of Basra on Saturday, Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf told reporters in Baghdad: “Let them (bask) in their illusions.”

Ali Hassan al-Majid, a cousin of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, earned his nickname “Chemical Ali” for overseeing the use of poison gas against Kurdish villagers in 1988.