The noose tightens:
Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, Saddam Hussein’s top lieutenant, has probably been captured or killed in a raid by US forces, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC)said on Tuesday.
Mouwafak al-Rubai, a Shiite member of the IGC, told Reuters that US troops had conducted a major operation on a suspicious target in the northern city of Kirkuk, and al-Douri might have been killed or caught, Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV channel reported.
A US military spokesman could not confirm the report at the moment, but said the US-led coalition authority will give details about the incident later.
The US military has blamed al-Douri for passing money for or even coordinating a number of anti-coalition attacks, and offered a reward of 10 million dollars for anyone who provides information leading to his capture of killing.
US forces last month destroyed one of his houses near Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit and detained in Samarra his wife and daughter and a son of his physician, all of whom US officials said might help them to know about al-Douri’s whereabout.
Al-Douri, number six on the most wanted 55 list, was the vice chairman of the former Revolutionary Command Council and remained the highest ranking official at large other than Saddam himself.
I am sure this will be spun as bad news somewhere…
They didn’t catch him. Damn.
US troops that encircled the town of Hawijah for 12 hours on Tuesday in a swoop for Saddam Hussein’s deputy Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri as part of a massive manhunt across north-central Iraq failed to find the wanted fugitive, a US spokesperson said.
“Al-Duri was not captured in this raid,” said Major Doug Vincent, spokesman for the 173rd Airborne Division, which mounted the huge search operation, told reporters who accompanied the 1 200 troops involved.
The principal target of the search in this town of 80 000 people, 45km west of Iraq’s northern oil centre of Kirkuk, was someone who had a “close relation with al-Duri,” another US officer told reporters.
As Donald Sensing frequently notes, ‘First reports are always wrong.’