US Special Forces capture another of Saddam’s half-brothers

CAMP AS SAYLIYAH, Qatar: US Special Forces yesterday captured Barzan Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, a half-brother of Saddam Hussein and a major catch in the effort to round up members of the former regime, the US Central Command said.

Al-Tikriti was a presidential adviser to Saddam and had “extensive knowledge of the regime’s workings,” Brig Gen Vincent Brooks said at the daily Central Command briefing. He is one of Saddam’s three half-brothers and the second to be captured. On Sunday, coalition forces announced the capture of Watban Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, who once served as Iraq’s interior minister.

Barzan was captured alone in Baghdad, and information from Iraqis led to his arrest, Brooks said. Like his brother Watban, Barzan was seen as a significant catch because of the likelihood he could provide information on Saddam’s suspected weapons of mass destruction programme, one of the major reasons the United States and Great Britain launched the war. So far coalition forces have not found any certain evidence that those weapons exist in Iraq. The third half-brother, Sab’awi Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, has taken refuge in Damascus, Syria, according to a London newspaper report. He is the six of diamonds in the 55-card deck carried by US troops.