Committed to PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO KNOW
Vol. 5 Num 270 Tue. March 01, 2005  
   
International


Syria hands Saddam's half Brother to Iraq


Iraqi officials said Sunday that Syria captured and handed over Saddam Hussein's half brother, a most-wanted leader in the Sunni-based insurgency, ending months of Syrian denials that it was harbouring fugitives from the ousted Saddam regime.

Iraq authorities said Damascus acted in a gesture of goodwill.

Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, who shared a mother with Saddam, was nabbed along with 29 other fugitive members of the former dictator's Baath Party in Hasakah in northeastern Syria, 30 miles from the Iraqi border, the officials said on condition of anonymity. The US military in Iraq had no immediate comment.

On Monday, a suicide car bomber drove into a crowd of people applying for work in a government office south of Baghdad and detonated his explosives, killing 25 people and wounded 71, a senior Interior Ministry official and witnesses said.