Saddam's Half Brother Caught

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi officials said Sunday that Syrian authorities captured Saddam Hussein's half brother in Syria and handed him over to Iraq in an apparent goodwill gesture, dealing a blow to an insurgency that some Iraqi officials claim the former fugitive was helping organize and fund. The U.S. military also said two American soldiers were killed Sunday in an ambush in the capital.

Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, who was also a former adviser suspected of financing insurgents after U.S. troops ousted the former dictator, was captured in Hasakah in northeastern Syria near the Iraqi border, two senior Iraqi officials told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Al-Hassan was No. 36 on the list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis released by U.S. authorities after American troops invaded Iraq in March 2003, and he also was named one of the 29 most-wanted supporters of insurgents in Iraq. The United States had a $1 million bounty on his head.

Officials in interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's office, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed al-Hassan's capture.

In a statement, Allawi's office said the arrest "shows the determination of the Iraqi government to chase and detain all criminals who carried out massacres and whose hands are stained with the blood of the Iraqi people, then bring them to justice to face the right punishment."

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