'Saddam's top lieutenant dead,' reports claim
Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the highest-ranking figure from Saddam Hussein’s regime still at large, died today, according to unconfirmed reports.
An email sent to a Western news agency and signed by the “Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party – Iraq Command” said al-Douri died at 2.30am today but gave no indication of the cause.
US officials believed al-Douri played a key role in organising resistance that erupted in 2003 against the US-led coalition and was instrumental in forging links between remnants of Saddam’s regime and Islamic extremists.
However, it was unclear whether al-Douri, who had been in poor health for years, still played a direct role in commanding the insurgents. In June, the Iraqi government said he was losing influence among the pro-Saddam wing of the insurgency.
In Washington, a US official could not confirm al-Douri’s death.
Arab satellite television stations broadcast the report based on the email but said they had no independent confirmation. US and Iraqi officials in Iraq also said they were aware of the report but could not verify it.
Abdul-Rahman Mohammed Ibrahim, nephew and son-in-law of al-Douri, said he had heard the report on an Arab satellite television station but had no independent confirmation.
“We don’t have such news,” he told The Associated Press. “I cannot deny or confirm the report.”
In Amman, Jordan, the secretary-general of the Jordanian Ba’ath wing, Tayseer al-Homsi, also said he had no information except what he had seen on television newscasts. There was no such statement on Ba’ath websites.
Al-Douri, born in 1942, was one of Saddam’s long-time lieutenants and officially the No. 2 man in Iraq’s ruling hierarchy when the Ba’ath regime collapsed as US troops occupied Baghdad in April 2003.
He was No. 6 on the American “deck of cards” list.
He escaped the US dragnet following the collapse of the regime and had been variously rumoured to be in Syria or elsewhere.
US officials believed he was a key figure in organising resistance against the US-led coalition.
Al-Douri had been rumoured to be suffering from a serious illness, possibly leukaemia, before Saddam’s regime fell.
He sought medical treatment in Austria in 1999 but had to leave abruptly after human rights groups threatened to file charges against him in Austrian courts.
Last June, the Iraqi government said in a statement that al-Douri was sick and losing influence among Ba’ath party leaders but nonetheless retained his ability to “recruit terrorists and finance terrorist attacks with money he stole from Iraq and transferred to Syria during the rule of the tyrant Saddam”.
Al-Douri had been rumoured to have been arrested several times before, most notably in September 2004, when Iraqi authorities announced his capture during a raid near his home village near Tikrit.
Later, the Iraqi Defence Ministry said the report was false.
