BAGHDAD, 27 November 2003 — US troops yesterday announced the capture of two family members of Saddam Hussein’s deputy in the quickening hunt for the alleged mastermind of anti-coalition violence, as British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made a surprise visit to Baghdad.
The arrest of the wife and daughter of Izzat Ibrahim came just a week after the coalition announced a $10 million bounty for the fugitive Saddam henchman and followed airstrikes on two of his homes and the arrest of 14 of his alleged agents. Straw, whose visit to Iraq starting Tuesday went unannounced for security reasons, said the resistance now facing coalition troops in Iraq had been no surprise for London and Washington.
He voiced confidence that US counterinsurgency operations and the accelerated handover of power to Iraqis would help stem the violence.
But the announcement of a new faster blueprint for the transition earlier this month has failed to quell the quickening resistance among Iraq’s Sunni Muslim former elite.
Yesterday, it also ran into opposition from the Shiite majority whose leaders warned of “serious trouble” if the blueprint is not reviewed.
The commander of the US 4th Infantry Division, which patrols northcentral Iraq, said that Ibrahim’s wife and daughter were captured, along with a son of his doctor, on a raid in Samarra, north of Baghdad.
“It has to do with us trying to gain information on Ibrahim, where he might be and what operations he may be conducting,” said Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno. “We believe they may have some information of how he’s moving and where he’s moving to and from,” Odierno told journalists at the division’s headquarters in Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit.
“We don’t have specific proof that he is in fact running these operations but we have some reports that he could be.
“He certainly is involved, he has been involved from the beginning. He is a close associate, he has ties, has the ability to control and potentially provide money and direction.”
The two-star general said the price being paid for attacks on US troops was going up “so we’ve got to find where the money is coming from, specifically who’s providing the money.
“We think what he might be doing is somehow passing money, but we don’t know that for sure, that’s what we’d like to find out.”
Ibrahim is sixth on the most wanted list posted by the US military during the spring invasion and the most senior official still at large apart from Saddam himself.
Tight security surrounded the Baghdad visit of the British foreign minister, who later visited the main southern city of Basra which is patrolled by British troops before leaving Iraq.
A trio of explosions Tuesday evening hit buildings just outside the heavily fortified Baghdad administrative compound where Straw held talks with US commanders and Iraq’s interim leadership.
Straw said British and US leaders had foreseen the resistance that has dogged the coalition for the past seven months.
“We were never under any illusions that it would be possible to remove this in one go, that, as it were, the high-intensity conflict would be followed by low-intensity conflict.”
