Iraq: 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 yesterday.
American military officials said they could not confirm the capture of red-haired al-Douri, number six on the wanted list - the king of clubs in the deck of cards - and US forces have offered a $10 million bounty for his arrest.
Once the vice chairman of the Baath Party's Revolutionary Command Council, al-Douri is the most prominent member of Saddam's inner circle to remain on the run.
Iraq's top information official said the key confidante of Saddam had been seized while receiving medical treatment near his home town. Al-Douri reportedly suffers from leukaemia, and needs blood transfusions.
"We are sure he is Izzat Ibrahim," information official Ibrahim Janabi said.
"He was arrested in a clinic in Makhoul near Tikrit and Adwar [his home town] and 60 per cent of the DNA test has finished."
Iraqi Minister of State Qassim Dawoud confirmed al-Douri's arrest during a press conference in Kuwait and said some 150 others who were defending him were also detained in northern Iraq.
However, US Major Neal O'Brien of the Tikrit-based 1st Infantry Division said he could not confirm the report and US-led forces issued a statement saying he was not in their custody.
A senior US diplomat said they had nothing to indicate that al-Douri had been arrested.
Iraqi officials have mistakenly reported al-Douri's arrest several times before.
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, 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. - (AP)