Former Saddam deputy arrested

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

Saleh Sarhan told al-Hurra television that al-Douri was captured while in a clinic where he was receiving medical treatment.

“There was a major operation around Tikrit and American forces supported by Iraqi civil defence corps members were able to capture Izzat al-Douri,” he told the station in a live telephone interview.

The US military said it had no immediate comment on the report.

Late last year, al-Douri's wife and daughter were detained. In January, troops arrested four of his nephews who were suspected of helping him hide.

Since Saddam was arrested close to Tikrit on December 13 last year, al-Douri has taken on the title of the Pentagon’s most wanted man in Iraq.

Earlier this year, US forces conducted numerous raids in and around the northern city of Samarra in search of al-Douri, who they suspected may have been behind the funding and orchestration of insurgent attacks against coalition forces.

During several house raids on January 14 in Samarra, American forces arrested four of al-Douri’s nephews who they suspected were aiding in moving Saddam’s former right hand man to different locations to avoid capture.

Ahmed Hadi, a spokesman for the minister of state for provincial affairs, said officials were doing DNA testing to confirm his identity.

“To be sure that he is Izzat al-Douri, a sample of his blood has been taken,” he said. “It will be examined so that it could be confirmed that he is Izzat al-Douri.”

Hadi said the man was arrested during a raid by US forces and Iraqi National Guard, supported by helicopters and tanks, in the vicinity of Tikrit and the areas around it.

The suspect was surrounded by about 150 armed men who clashed with the US-Iraqi forces.

Al-Douri was the highest-ranking member of Saddam’s government who was still at large. Once the vice-chairman of the Baath Party’s Revolutionary Command Council, he was a long-time confidant of Saddam.

He is number six on the wanted list – the king of clubs in the deck of cards - and US forces had offered a $10m bounty for his arrest.

Al-Douri was responsible for the now-disbanded Iraqi army’s northern sector, which includes Kirkuk, Mosul and Tikrit, during the US-led invasion in March 2003.