Kurds hand Saddam's oil minister to US forces, fourth of the 'most wanted'

Another senior member of Saddam Hussein's regime, its acting Oil Minister, Samir Abd al-Aziz al-Najim, was in US custody yesterday after being captured by Kurdish forces near the city of Mosul in northern Iraq. Mr Najim, a member of the Baath party's powerful regional command, is the fourth man captured from the US list of 55 "most-wanted" figures. On Thursday, Barzan Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, President Saddam's half-brother and unofficial banker, fell into US hands. Mr Tikriti is wanted for war crimes, including the murder of thousands of Kurds in 1983.

Mr Najim, a Sunni Arab, replaced the long-standing Iraqi Oil Minister Lieutenant-General Amer Mohammed Rashid in January. He took over as the Iraqi dictator's Chief of Staff after the 1991 Gulf War and has been associated with him since. He and Saddam were involved in the attempt to kill Abdel Karim Qassem, when he was Prime Minister in 1959.

Saddam Hussein escaped to Syria and later Egypt, but Mr Najim was condemned to death. He was later pardoned by Mr Qassem. He is also a former ambassador to Egypt, Turkey, Spain and Moscow, and the anti-Saddam Iraqi National Congress claims he was deputy general secretary of the Military Bureau, second only to President Saddam.

At US Central Command, Brigadier General Brooks said: "We think we have someone here. All those people on that list of 55 have information on the inner workings of the regime. That relates to weapons of mass destruction, that relates to terrorism. He was a Baath party official, a regional command chairman for the Baghdad district, and is believed to have first-hand knowledge of the Baath party structure." Days before, American forces raided an elegant white stone house after an informant said Mr Najim was inside. But a neighbour told them the wanted man had fled.

Other men on the list who have been captured are Lt-Gen Amer Hammoudi al-Saadi, a prominent scientific adviser to President Saddam who surrendered to US forces in Baghdad and Watban Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, another half-brother of the dictator, who was captured by British special forces near the Syrian border.

Yesterday, an unnamed Iraqi soldier told the BBC that he had seen Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali", near his home town of Amarah the day after an Allied air attack in Basra a fortnight ago. British forces said they were "99 per cent sure" he had been killed. The Iraqi soldier said General Majid and his entourage were driven into the town in a convoy of a Mercedes, two four-wheel-drive Nissan patrols and a truck.

US troops from the 4th Infantry Division have also captured 30 Iraqis and destroyed eight armed civilian pick-up trucks north of Baghdad. And Australian special forces uncovered 51 MiGs "from the mid-Eighties" and other weapons in the biggest aircraft cache found since the war began.