Saddam's half brother captured; POWs rescued

11.45am

BAGHDAD - US Marines attacked Iraqi loyalists outside Saddam Hussein's last stronghold of Tikrit as American forces advancing deeper into the country recovered seven American prisoners of war and captured Saddam's half brother.

The Marines, supported by attack helicopters and F-18 warplanes, battled Iraqi Republican guard and Saddam Fedayeen fighters on the outskirts of Tikrit.

In Washington, President George W Bush and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned Syria not to grant refuge to fleeing Iraqi leaders.

Just hours later, US officials revealed that Saddam's half brother, Watban Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, had been captured in recent days near the Syrian border and turned over to the US military.

Watban, Saddam's half brother from his mother's second marriage who was on a US most-wanted list of 55 people, had been planning to cross the border to Syria when he was caught.

US officials said Saddam had mistrusted Watban and removed him as interior minister in 1995, but he remained a presidential adviser.

After nightfall in Baghdad, which had returned to a semblance of normality after days of looting and anarchy, Marines exchanged fire with snipers near the Palestine Hotel, where many foreign media are staying.

Reuters correspondent Edmund Blair said the firefight lasted several minutes and flares lit up an area near the hotel before the shooting died down.

One Marine officer said there could have been up to five snipers. Three or four people in civilian clothes were detained by Marines.

Baghdad and the southern city of Basra were quiet earlier as Iraqis volunteered to help restore law and order. And in the northern oil hub of Kirkuk, US troops eased tensions after days of street violence.

At home, Americans rejoiced as all seven listed US prisoners of war were found safe and well on the road between Baghdad and Tikrit after their captors apparently fled from US Marines advancing on Saddam's besieged hometown.

Five of the prisoners, including a woman, were members of a maintenance company captured on March 23 when their convoy was ambushed. They were from the same unit as US soldier Jessica Lynch, who was rescued in a raid on an Iraqi hospital on April 1 and is now being treated in Washington. The other two POWs were pilots whose Apache helicopter went down the same day.

In the holy city of Najaf, friction between Muslim Shi'ite factions flared and armed men besieged the home of Shi'ite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani giving him 48 hours to leave.

The standoff highlighted the strife at the heart of Iraq's majority community and indicated how difficult it could be to forge national unity after the US-led war to topple Saddam.

"The situation is very bad," Abdulhassan al-Fajaji of the London-based al-Khoei foundation told Reuters from Najaf. "People are screaming, crying, talking to the men to stop that against their Maarja (spiritual leader), but no one listens. That's very dangerous for our religion if something happens."

Shi'ites make up 60 per cent of Iraq's population of around 26 million and were persecuted for decades by Saddam's secular Sunni-dominated Baath Party.

Bush hailed the release of the American prisoners and warned Damascus not to give sanctuary to fleeing Iraqi leaders.

"Syria just needs to co-operate with the United States and our coalition partners, not harbor any Baathists, any military officials, any people who need to be held to account," Bush told reporters at the White House.

Rumsfeld said some leading members of Saddam's ousted government had already taken refuge in Syria. "The (Syrian) government is making a lot of bad mistakes, a lot of bad judgments in my view," Rumsfeld told CBS' "Face the Nation."

He declined to say what Washington might do if Saddam surfaces in Syria. "The last thing I would do would be to discuss that," he said.

Rumsfeld also said Syrians had been actively involved in fighting US forces, especially in Baghdad -- just the latest in a string of charges he has made in recent days about Syrian support for Saddam's fallen government.

No one in the Bush administration is openly advocating the use of force against Syria. But it is clearly hoping that after Saddam's experience, leaders in Damascus will conclude seeking weapons of mass destruction may be hazardous to their health.

Bush appeared to ratchet up the pressure on Sunday by suggesting that Syria has chemical weapons.

"I think that we believe there are chemical weapons in Syria, for example," he said.

In Tikrit, which is dominated by the clan of Saddam, who was born in a nearby village, Marines attacked Iraqi positions in the outskirts as they thrust toward the city center.

"It's a very significant attack. They've brought forward a great number of Cobra assault helicopters and there are Marine F-18s overhead," Matthew Fisher of Canada's National Post newspaper told CNN.

However, armed men in Tikrit told al-Jazeera Arabic television that tribal leaders were negotiating a cease-fire with US forces and Iraqi troops and paramilitaries had left.

Gen Tommy Franks, commander of the US-led war in Iraq, said that although the core Iraqi army had been destroyed, militia, death squads and foreign fighters were battling on.

"Until we have a sense that we have all of that under control, then we will probably not characterise the initial military phase as having been completed and the regime totally gone," he told CNN.

Rumours still flew about the fate of Saddam. Some believe he may be in Tikrit or has fled abroad, others that he might be dead. Franks said the United States had Saddam's DNA and would use it to check whether attempts to kill him had succeeded.

In Baghdad earlier hundreds of Iraqi police and civil servants, anxious to restore calm of days of anarchic looting and destruction, responded to US calls to meet in the city centre and discuss returning to service.

The streets of Basra, which saw widespread looting were visibly less tense after Iraqi policemen joined British military police trying to restore calm.

However, in northern Iraq at least eight people were killed in running battles between US-allied Iraqi Kurds and Arab tribes still loyal to Saddam.

In Kirkuk itself, US tanks and armoured personnel carriers helped restore calm after a spasm of anarchy and vandalism.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq war