August 21, 2003
By D'ARCY DORAN, Associated Press Writer
Photo: Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as Chemical Ali, is seen in this Monday, Jan. 20, 2003 file photo in Beirut, Lebanon. A senior defense official said Thursday Aug. 21, 2003, that 'Chemical Ali', fifth on the coalition list of 55 most wanted Iraqis, and the King of Spades on the deck of cards of the most wanted, is in the custody of U.S. forces. (AP Photo/Adnan Hajj Ali)
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Ali Hassan al-Majid, No. 5 on the list of most-wanted Iraqis, has been captured, the U.S. military said on Thursday. Meanwhile, searchers pulled three more bodies from the rubble of the bombed U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, raising the death toll to 23.
Later, the United Nations announced it was withdrawing one-third of its staff from Iraq.
Ali Hassan al-Majid, a cousin of Saddam Hussein, once ran Iraq's armed forces. Opponents dubbed him "Chemical Ali" for his role in 1988 chemical weapons attacks that killed thousands of Kurds in northern Iraq.
Earlier, U.S. troops nabbed a suspected Iraqi militia leader carrying what appeared to be a hit list of 10 Iraqi names. And an American soldier was reported killed by "an improvised explosive device," the U.S. Central Command said. Two other soldiers were wounded in the incident in the Karkah district of Baghdad late Wednesday.
The dead soldier, whose name was not yet released, was from the 1st Armored Division. The military had no other details.
U.S. officials in Washington gave no immediate details of how al-Majid came into U.S. custody. Al-Majid was the king of spades in the deck of cards issued by the U.S. military to help soldiers identify former regime leaders.
The military had believed al-Majid was killed in April in an airstrike on a house in southern Iraq. But Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in June that interrogations of Iraqi prisoners indicated he might still be alive.
Also Thursday, U.S. forces captured a suspected senior member of Saddam's Fedayeen militia who was carrying a shopping list for explosives materials near Baqouba, 45 miles northeast of Baghdad, a military official said.
The man, identified as Rashid Mohammed, was believed to be trying to organize a 600-strong militia in the area. He also was holding what appeared to be list of Iraqis to be killed when soldiers stopped his car on a highway north of Baqouba and detained him along with two others, said Lt. Col. William Adamson, of the 588th Engineering Battalions.
The military also said it had captured an unspecified number of Saddam's relatives and associates in a Wednesday night raid in Baquoba, 45 miles northeast of Baghdad. Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, declined to identify the captives.
Saddam "will have to continue to move on a routine basis or we will catch him. I believe he is moving around the Sunni Triangle," Odierno said, referring to the region west and north of Baghdad with a high concentration of supporters of the deposed dictator.
Meanwhile, hundreds of soldiers and civilians, assisted by sniffer dogs, searched for bodies Thursday amid the destroyed U.N. offices in the Canal Hotel, said David Roath from the U.S. Defense Department, who is overseeing the recovery efforts. He said evidence of human remains was being collected and would be sent to a lab for testing, Roath said, without elaborating.
Thursday's search uncovered three more bodies, said U.N. spokesman Salim Lone, raising the toll to at least 23 — including chief U.N. envoy to Iraq Sergio Vieira de Mello.
For safety, search teams staged a controlled explosion to remove a piece of dangling concrete roof they feared might fall. Team members said they might have to stage similar blasts as they continue to sift through the wreckage.
About 100 U.N. support and administrative staff, out of a total 300 in Iraq, were being flown to Amman, Jordan, and Larnaca, Cyprus, according to Romiro Lopez da Silva, Iraq coordinator for U.N. humanitarian programs.
He said 86 U.N. staffers were seriously wounded in the Tuesday attack and were evacuated as their condition allowed. He said two U.N. colleagues still were unaccounted for and an unknown number of people, visitors to the headquarters building, still were buried in the rubble.
FBI agents investigating the blast determined that the bomb consisted of about 1,000 pounds of old ordnance — including mortar rounds, artillery shells, hand grenades and a 500-pound bomb — likely culled from Saddam Hussein's old arsenal.
The explosives were piled — without "any great degree of sophistication or expertise" — onto the back of a Soviet-made military flatbed truck known as a KAMAZ, not a cement truck as earlier thought, Special Agent Thomas Fuentes said.
The vehicle was driven to just outside the concrete wall recently built around the hotel and detonated. Some munitions failed to explode, and investigators and rescue workers had to dig through the site carefully Wednesday to avoid setting them off.
U.S. Army soldiers have turned up plentiful weapons caches across the country in past months.
L. Paul Bremer, the American civil administrator in Iraq, said on American television Wednesday that there were "at least two hypotheses" over the bombing — one blaming remnants of the Saddam regime, the other, insurgents from neighboring countries.
He said more than 100 foreign terrorists were believed to be in Iraq, but did not say which theory seemed more likely at this stage.
Members of Iraq's U.S.-picked Governing Council pointed to Saddam loyalists. After a council meeting Wednesday, member Mouwafak Al-Rabii said, "There are fingerprints indicating that the act was committed by remnants of the former regime and there are early investigation reports confirming that." He did not elaborate.
Ahmad Chalabi, a prominent council member, warned that the lines between foreign militants and pro-Saddam guerrillas is already blurred, saying Iraqi intelligence reports showed that the Saddam's Fedayeen militia had allied itself with the al-Qaida-linked Ansar al-Islam.
"Ansar are now in Baghdad and they are compromised of Iraqis from all sects and non-Iraqis," he said.
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EDITOR'S NOTE: AP writers Sameer N. Yacoub in Baghdad, Andrew England in Baqouba and Hrvoje Hranjski in Tikrit contributed to this report.
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