A half-brother of Saddam Hussein, who is believed to have extensive knowledge of the toppled Iraqi regime's inner workings, was captured today, US military officials said.
Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, a top adviser to Saddam, was captured alone in Baghdad after special forces had been tipped off by an Iraqi, Brigadier General Vincent Brooks said at a briefing at US central command in Qatar.
The US president, George Bush, last night urged the UN to lift the economic sanctions that have been imposed on Iraq for 13 years, saying that the country had been liberated.
Mr Bush's call came after EU leaders yesterday backed a plea by the prime minister, Tony Blair, to help rebuild Iraq. The UN security council was expected to discuss the lifting of sanctions next week.
Also today, the newly-arrived US 4th Infantry Division fought a brief battle near the Taji airfield, north of Baghdad. Gen Brooks said the US troops "killed and wounded a portion of the enemy force, destroyed some T-72 tanks and captured over 100 enemy fighters".
'Five of clubs' captured
Al-Tikriti was a presidential adviser to Saddam and had "extensive knowledge of the regime's workings," Gen Brooks said at his daily 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, another of the half-brothers who once served as Iraq's interior minister.
Watban was the five of spades in the deck of 55 playing cards featuring pictures of wanted Iraqi officials and issued the US military issued to troops with pictures of wanted Iraqi officials. Barzan was the five of clubs.
"We are currently asking a number of questions ... finding out whatever we can from this capture," Gen Brooks said.
Like his brother Watban, Barzan is seen as a significant catch because of the likelihood that he could provide information on Saddam's suspected weapons of mass destruction programme, one of the major reasons the US and Britain launched the war in Iraq.
Saddam's third half-brother, Sab'awi Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, has taken refuge in Damascus, Syria, reports claim. He is the six of diamonds in the card pack. The US has issued warnings to Syria not to harbour fugitives from the Saddam regime, and Damascus has denied that any top officials of the former government have been offered sanctuary.
Bush: 'UN must lift sanctions'
The White House said that the US would propose a UN resolution to end sanctions "in the near future". However, the speed of any such moves could be slowed by a requirement, under previous UN resolutions, that UN inspectors certify that Iraq's banned weapons programmes are finished.
The UN security council has scheduled an April 22 briefing by the chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix. The US has so far not invited UN inspectors to return to Iraq.
Mexico's UN ambassador, Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, the current security council president, said yesterday that members would be guided by two resolutions that establish the legal conditions for suspending and lifting sanctions. They are "related strictly to the disarmament of Iraq".
The security council imposed sanctions banning all countries from importing any Iraqi goods, including oil, four days after Saddam Hussein's forces invaded Kuwait in August 1990.
An arms embargo was added after the first Gulf war, in 1991, ended with Iraq's defeat. Sanctions were later modified to allow oil revenue to be used to buy food, medicine and other humanitarian items for the Iraqi people.
The resolution states that sanctions can be lifted when the council has agreed that Iraq has completed disarmament.
The US ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte, said that Washington was still discussing the specifics of lifting sanctions. "We visualise some kind of a step-by-step procedure with respect to post-conflict resolutions regarding Iraq," he said. "Certainly one of the issues we're going to have to deal with early on is sanctions."
In other developments, one of Mr Bush's top aides, the White House chief of staff, Andrew Card, said in an online discussion that he believed Saddam was dead. However, a senior US official told Reuters later that he was unaware of any new evidence suggesting this.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon's top budget officer said last night that the Iraq war has cost the US at least £12bn, and will probably consume that much again or more in the next five months. The 1991 Gulf war cost about £36bn, but nearly all of that was reimbursed by Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other allies.
The chancellor, Gordon Brown, has set aside £3bn to pay for Britain's role in the war.
Meanwhile, in Baghdad, war commander General Tommy Franks briefed Mr Bush on the war, via videoconference, from inside one of Saddam's ornate palaces. It was the general's first visit to the Iraqi capital since the war began on March 20. Gen Franks was also touring the coalition's humanitarian operations centre in Kuwait.
Troops struggle to keep order
Iraqi and coalition troops continued to have problems keeping order as looting, ethnic fighting and clashes between rival factions, and with US forces, broke out across Iraq.
Two days of violence in the northern city of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest, left 17 people dead and 18 others injured, hospital officials said. Many of the wounded said that they were shot by US troops.
"They are killing us and no one's talking about it," Zahra Yassin, at a Mosul hospital with her wounded son, said. "We want Saddam back. At least there was security."
In Tikrit, members of Saddam's clan attacked rivals from nearby villages, beating them with clubs in fights over food, an American military officer said. US marines intervened in two such clashes, he said.
In Kirkuk, the second largest city in the north, Arab families complained that they have been forced out of their homes by a group of Kurds claiming ownership in the largely Kurdish city.
Virgin to start Iraq flights
Sir Richard Branson's airline, Virgin Atlantic, is to begin flying relief supplies to Iraq, and plans to reintroduce scheduled services to Baghdad, it was announced today.
The first few flights would be humanitarian trips delivering doctors, nurses and aid, and would go out as soon as possible. Sir Richard said: "Flights to and from Baghdad will be a key element in helping Iraq's long term regeneration, and reuniting families who have been separated for many years."
Information minister suicide reports examined
Coalition military chiefs were today looking at reports that the Iraqi information minister dubbed "Comical Ali" had committed suicide.
Newspaper reports in Iran surfaced two days ago saying Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, who repeatedly claimed that Iraq was winning the war, had hanged himself.
Military sources treated the reports with caution, suggesting that they could have been spread by the fleeing Iraqi propagandist to throw special forces' snatch squads off his tail.
Saddam's Tikrit palace toured
The Associated Press's Alexandra Zavis sent a dispatch today after touring the opulence of Saddam's two palaces in his hometown of Tikrit.
At one of his palaces, Zavis said that intricately carved pillars and archways adorn vast, sand-coloured buildings next to an artificial lake with pleasure boats.
Zavis said: "Inside are marble-lined rooms with crystal chandeliers and arched ceilings, hand-painted in swirling floral designs. For his horses, Saddam was building climate-controlled stables with wall-to-wall tiling, glass light fixtures and running water in every stall."
"I cannot believe the priorities," one American marine, Jeffrey Watts tells Zavis. "Their horses get treated better than their people."
US forces still occasionally come under sniper and mortar fire, but resistance in Tikrit has been much less than expected.